Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler wine thread

Anyone have thoughts on a grape type to select while having dinner with a cream cheese stuffed portabello mushroom frittata?

Norton. Definitely Norton. Good luck finding it, though.

Wow, a real challenge.
You've perked my interest peter.
Please, stop at that though.

I never even thought to post this until this moment, but we're having some company over this weekend for a wine tasting party.
The theme happens to be chardonnay.
I don't have a list of the other bottles yet, but my choices (only need 2) for trial are:
2001 Peller Estates Signature Series Sur Lie
2001 Beringer Founders Estate
2002 Toasted Head

I have one more Californian downstairs with a French label, but i don't recall the name at the moment.
Someone did say something about bringing an $80 French chardonnay that the wine vendor gave him a deal on for something like $45. I'm beginning to wonder.

I’m not a big white drinker, but I do like that Toasted Head. I also like Boggle(sp), and the Kim Crawford unoaked chardonnay. I think the Crawford is my favorite white wine. Not too sweat, or too dry or too boring. Just right. A good friend of mine who happens to be a wine freak fell in love it.

http://www.kimcrawfordwines.co.nz/intro.htm

chess, I hope you're doin a blind tasting. Seriously! Number some paper bags, pop those corks, and get those bottles into them (with you eyes closed). Brands/labels can affect your taste buds just as they can your ears.

Indeed we are doing a blind testing Peter.
My wife sets up the bottles labelled A through D. The lads sit in the basement and await the letter labelled glasses.
The last time we did this it worked out well except for a slight mixup. We had two ppl handing us glasses and one of them got the left and right bottles confused (picked up a glass in left hand but put it into our right hand and hence ONE of us thought it was the left bottle vs the right bottle....). So needless to say, when we tried to describe the wines and none of our character thoughts matched we questioned the servers as to how they handed us the glasses. Of course at that point, we had to start the tasting all over again. Keep in mind that this particular night involved two tastings with the first being white wines (2 bottles) and the second tasting being 2 reds. Also keep in mind that we don't usually spit during our tastings, but knowing that tipsyness can be a factor, we limit ourselves to 4 selections for tasting in any one evening.
Well as you could guess, by the time we figured out the glasses were mistakenly switched for one of us, we had to redo the red tasting and by the time we were done, the tasting notes were starting to look alot like the 1st year chemistry notes in that 8am class where i kept falling asleep.
We did eventually get it sorted out but by the time we were done, the reds only had about a half bottle left in each of them.
{sigh}
The hardships of life, i know.

Another fun variation to a wine tasting at home is to do it out at a restaurant. The person who brings the wine that receives the lowest score pays for dinner.

We're only allowed to bring our own wine in restaurants in National Parks . . . something about the liquor licensing act? BTW, Ontario (the province we're in) has state-controlled liquor, and that makes us the world's largest buying power for international wines, apparently.

The MLC (Manitoba Liquor Commission) also controls liquor in this province. They do have access to a wide selection of wines, but they never seem to have a wide selection. Every MLC in town has its own individual that places orders so you can find some product variation in each store, but they mostly carry the same old stuff. Asking for a custom order is rarely successful.
Unlike Ontario, private wine stores are allowed in Manitoba, however they can ONLY buy items approved by the MLC. On the plus side, you could get these wines at both stores, but as i said, the MLC rarely has a ton out of the ordinary whereas the private shops go out of their way to find the different selections allowed under the MLC umbrella.
It is a weird arrangement to say the least.
At least i know that the private wine stores cannot sell their products at a value greater than what is sold at the MLC. You can never overpay unless it is the gov't setting the price!