"Thank God" wines

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

 

[BJ]

I can't believe we're talking about this, and more specifically, some of the wines we're talking about. What happened?

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
but properly brewed iced tea is terrific with curries or other spicy dishes that no wine can stand up to and your only other choice is a list of god (there he/her is again) awful Anheuser Busch beers

I'll have to take your word for it. (Often, there's Sapporo or Tsingtao or Kingfisher or Stripe or something.)

 

[Steve Edmunds]

Aaaaaarggggghhhhhhh!

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by BJ:
I can't believe we're talking about this, and more specifically, some of the wines we're talking about. What happened?

An example of a loose cannon taking advantage of loose canons.

 

[Bill Lundstrom]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

Same here, Bill. As I’ve become more popular as an expert witness in patent disputes, I’ve spent more time dining with lawyers. Barring one who’s a Wine Spec kinda guy, for the most part they are happy to defer to me for wine selection and are usually surprised when I don’t choose the pointiest CalCab on the list. The reactions to a 10 year old Produttori Pora were worth the price of admission, though.

Mark Lipton

 

[Florida Jim]

originally posted by BJ:
I can't believe we're talking about this, and more specifically, some of the wines we're talking about. What happened?

In another thread, I opined that Jadot, Macon-Villages was terrific Chardonnay despite its low price point
Christian then mentioned he called such wines “thank god” wines as they were go to wines when little else on a list was palatable.
Thereafter, devolution occurred.
You know, interweb stuff . . .
Best, jim

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

Same here, Bill. As I’ve become more popular as an expert witness in patent disputes, I’ve spent more time dining with lawyers. Barring one who’s a Wine Spec kinda guy, for the most part they are happy to defer to me for wine selection and are usually surprised when I don’t choose the pointiest CalCab on the list. The reactions to a 10 year old Produttori Pora were worth the price of admission, though.

Mark Lipton

If I ever hire you, we could geek out together. I usually get the list. And if I defer, it’s usually to someone who unfortunately doesn’t have the same taste; I grin and nod magnanimously those times.

 

[Peter Creasey]

I read only a small fraction of this board; even so, I probably could have initialized this thread better.

I intended it to encompass wines from a broad array of price ranges.

This ongoing thread would be of value to those of us who are very careful about what we pay for wine. And I don't mind searching around to find wines that folks here deem to be merit worthy (which is what I did with the Vajra Rosso that Maureen touted).

. . . . . . Pete

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

Same here, Bill. As I’ve become more popular as an expert witness in patent disputes, I’ve spent more time dining with lawyers. Barring one who’s a Wine Spec kinda guy, for the most part they are happy to defer to me for wine selection and are usually surprised when I don’t choose the pointiest CalCab on the list. The reactions to a 10 year old Produttori Pora were worth the price of admission, though.

Mark Lipton

If I ever hire you, we could geek out together. I usually get the list. And if I defer, it’s usually to someone who unfortunately doesn’t have the same taste; I grin and nod magnanimously those times.

A superb idea, Jayson. Hit me up if ever you are in need of someone with expertise in organic chemistry. For you, I’d even cut my hourly rate.

Mark Lipton, hired gun extraordinaire

 

[Michael Lewis]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

Same here, Bill. As I’ve become more popular as an expert witness in patent disputes, I’ve spent more time dining with lawyers. Barring one who’s a Wine Spec kinda guy, for the most part they are happy to defer to me for wine selection and are usually surprised when I don’t choose the pointiest CalCab on the list. The reactions to a 10 year old Produttori Pora were worth the price of admission, though.

Mark Lipton

If I ever hire you, we could geek out together. I usually get the list. And if I defer, it’s usually to someone who unfortunately doesn’t have the same taste; I grin and nod magnanimously those times.

A superb idea, Jayson. Hit me up if ever you are in need of someone with expertise in organic chemistry. For you, I’d even cut my hourly rate.

Mark Lipton, hired gun extraordinaire

Pre-COVID, I once took clients to Racines for dinner in NYC and geeked out with them over the wine. It was one of the best client dinners I have had as a lawyer, and I say that after having been over the years to a few of the super fancy ones where we are celebrating the completion of some big project and the dinner budgets were flush. Of course, it helped that the clients were also into wine...there are definitely some clients (and some law firm lawyers) for whom venturing downtown to a place like Racines would never work. A shame, those people are missing out...

 

[MarkS]

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
Often times, said dining partners call the waiter back over and order an extra ridiculously priced Cali Cab because they think "good wine" should cost a lot of money.

This has never happened to me. I guess my people are cheapskates.

My group is often taken out (pre covid) by vendors with rather large expense accounts. I've never taken advantage of that and often order wines that are fairly priced.

Having never been to an expense account luncheon or dinner, guess I can't relate much.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

By the way, has anyone looked-in on Steve? His post was loud but not clear.

 

[BJ]

I thought Steve's response was pretty clear. Assuming he was agreeing with me.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by Bill Lundstrom:
There's always beer or iced tea (vastly unappreciated beverage to accompany food) for situations like this.

There are good beers. When I was on assignment in Texas there were a lot of good beers around.

Tea, however, is only served to people who are sick in bed. (Yes, I know that isn't actually true but that is how I knew it growing up and there is no pu-erh, matcha, or first-flush-tippy-leaf-white-Mogadishu-Voltron-Camembert-shred that can change my mind.)

sigh....

I've even been to tea tastings in China and bought matcha in Japanese hyper-super-duper-markets. Hard to overcome that childhood training.

but properly brewed iced tea is terrific with curries or other spicy dishes that no wine can stand up to and your only other choice is a list of god (there he/her is again) awful Anheuser Busch beers

You ruled out most places with "properly brewed." At least the kind of places that "thank god" wines live.

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by scottreiner:

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

but my goal in this thread is for folks here to mention wines that have notable quality price ratio.

Weingut Josef Leitz, Riesling Feinherb Qualitätswein 2018
Ch“teau d'Oupia, Pays d'Hérault Les Hérétiques 2019
Viña Zorzal, Navarra Graciano 2018
Vallana, Piemonte Barbera 2018

All good wines no doubt, but "thank god wine" is not a value category, the wines may not even great values (although they do have to be fair quality for the price). I think only the above four might make the list, based on places I have seen them, and even then most of the places I've seen them have enough good wines on their lists that they don't need "thank god" wines.

I think it's an interesting intersection of taste and the distribution system and the dedication of some producers to making quality and interesting wine even on a large scale.

 

[BJ]

originally posted by BJ:
I thought Steve's response was pretty clear. Assuming he was agreeing with me.

I reread this...what was supposed to be funny fell flat. I guess I wasn't clear.

 

[Peter Creasey]

Francois Lumpp makes a slew of Givry 1er Crus that are fairly easy to find in the $40 - 50 range (I first bought his wines when the 1er Crus were ~$29). They are generally very good to excellent.

. . . . . . Pete

 

[Christian Miller (CMM)]

originally posted by Peter Creasey:

Francois Lumpp makes a slew of Givry 1er Crus that are fairly easy to find in the $40 - 50 range (I first bought his wines when the 1er Crus were ~$29). They are generally very good to excellent.

. . . . . . Pete

Looking for good affordable Burgundy is like watching the tail lights of a train you wanted to be on, receding slowly in the distance and gloom.