Hey Chess, seeing how you were in the ice wine country taking notes and having intelligent conversations like a good disciplined wine taster….., do you know how long they keep? During one of my drunken tasting days, I bought two horribly overpriced 2002 Pinot ice wines in .375 bottles. I just haven’t had the occasion or reason to open them. What do you think?

And yeah, it’s tough keeping track of all the wines tasted when in wine country. I tend to get way too caught up in the moment. One of my friends who I usually wander about with takes great notes. He's a machine with that journal. He takes it everywhere and has his scoring down very well. When we are tasting wines, I have him just take a quick note for me; "Mike likes this one" or Mike said it's swill". I can later refer to the notes. Although his notes tend to get harder to read after a few wineries....

I’ve since learned to resist the temptation to buy several bottles when at the winery. Now I take a couple 12 bottle shipping boxes with me. If I find a wine I really like at the tasting room, I’ll buy it and take it home. I have had mixed results with this. Sometimes I’ll open it a few weeks later and think its swill, and other times I end up ordering a case I like it so much.

I still need to get around to putting up picks from my last two trips before I head to Sonoma this May.