Apparently, we are Jihadis

"8. avoid losers,baiters, negativists,exclusionistas,fashionistas,and those with no sense of humor
9. have fun-we only have a one-way ticket-life is too short to deal with jerks and asswipes"

All this name-calling reads like simple code for 'people I don't like.' I always wonder how people who don't suffer fools manage to live with themselves.

Anyway, moving on, had a pretty good 09 Vissoux Garants last night: way too young, with plenty of rough and stoney substance, just softened by a residual layer of youthful fruit. Hold. This wine is supposed to be made from grapes grown in the same area as Coudert's Fleurie comes from - and, similarly, formerly classified as Moulin.
 
Nothing comes close to Vantaa, IME. It's the strangest thing. The have quite the buying power. 62 Lafite (superb example) tops my by-the-glass hit and runs there.

One thing you should know about the Vantaa wine bar is that it is owned by Pekka Nuikki. Nuikki has written a book called Drinking History where he talks about where he gets old wines from. It seems that every other month he finds a fantastic cellar that hidden from the Nazis. There are equally improbably stories in the book. My favourite was that he was travelling in the Sahara when he came by an oasis town and inquired if they had any wine and he was served a 1961 Latour which he then brought back to Finland. Apparently the wines were left in this obscure oasis town because some African dictator or other had bought the wine en primeur and his driver was bringing them back but the car broke down in the middle of the Sahara.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Nothing comes close to Vantaa, IME. It's the strangest thing. The have quite the buying power. 62 Lafite (superb example) tops my by-the-glass hit and runs there.

One thing you should know about the Vantaa wine bar is that it is owned by Pekka Nuikki. Nuikki has written a book called Drinking History where he talks about where he gets old wines from. It seems that every other month he finds a fantastic cellar that hidden from the Nazis. There are equally improbably stories in the book. My favourite was that he was travelling in the Sahara when he came by an oasis town and inquired if they had any wine and he was served a 1961 Latour which he then brought back to Finland. Apparently the wines were left in this obscure oasis town because some African dictator or other had bought the wine en primeur and his driver was bringing them back but the car broke down in the middle of the Sahara.

Buying 1961 en primeur would mean buying it in 1962. Wasn't most of Africa still colonized back then? The story sounds suspicious to me.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Nothing comes close to Vantaa, IME. It's the strangest thing. The have quite the buying power. 62 Lafite (superb example) tops my by-the-glass hit and runs there.

One thing you should know about the Vantaa wine bar is that it is owned by Pekka Nuikki. Nuikki has written a book called Drinking History where he talks about where he gets old wines from. It seems that every other month he finds a fantastic cellar that hidden from the Nazis. There are equally improbably stories in the book. My favourite was that he was travelling in the Sahara when he came by an oasis town and inquired if they had any wine and he was served a 1961 Latour which he then brought back to Finland. Apparently the wines were left in this obscure oasis town because some African dictator or other had bought the wine en primeur and his driver was bringing them back but the car broke down in the middle of the Sahara.

Buying 1961 en primeur would mean buying it in 1962. Wasn't most of Africa still colonized back then? The story sounds suspicious to me.

Actually, all of North Africa had achieved independence prior to 1962 except for Algeria, which achieved it in July of '62 and Western Sahara, in 1975.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
I'm OK with sycophancy, if anyone was wondering.
I've always preferred to be surrounded by devoted toadys. That way everybody knows what the hell I'm talking about and bows down immediately.
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
One thing you should know about the Vantaa wine bar is that it is owned by Pekka Nuikki.

Now I know !

Young wines and champagne are interesting there as well, if not always exactly to my taste. Never regretted trying something new.
 
the debates continues over on ebob...Terry Thiese just chimed in:

Item seven concerns me. "7. the jihadist movements of non-sulphured wines, green,under-ripe wines, low alcohol,insipid stuff promoted by the anti-pleasure police and neo-anti-alcohol proponents has run its course as another extreme and useless movement few care about"

I have only skimmed the replies and maybe someone has already said what I'm about to say; if so, I'm sorry. Skip to the next post.

I think it might just barely conceivably be in bad taste to refer to these things as "jihadist." It's cool rhetoric, but let's recover a sense of proportion. No one's dying from orange wines (though some of us would rather die than drink them).

RP strikes me as a very cool down-to-earth no BS guy, good neighbor, kids and dogs like him, except once in a while when he ties one on, blows holes in his walls with a shotgun and lays poison traps for the squirrels. Because this language comes dangerously close to hate-speech. And it isn't called for, as there are plenty of cogent and vigorous objections to make to (some of) these things without aiming for the 'nads.

He's probably right about non-sulfured wines, and that case has been made far more intelligently (and thus persuasively) by Stuart Pigott on his blog. Of course the thing is silly, but we often have to go too far in order to see just how far it's correct to go, and that's what I think is happening in much of the "natural" wine world.

I don't see these "green underripe" wines, but I'll take Bob's word they were out there. I'll also observe the continuing existence of overripe wines, and suggest these are more ubiquitous and therefore more dangerous, if either extreme can be said to be "dangerous." Both extremes certainly exist, and Bob dusts off his invective for just one of them. We'd do well to ask why.

Putting "low alcohol" and "insipid" next to each other in a sentence is, I'm sorry, just ignorant. Insipid wines exist at many levels of alcohol. All things being equal, I prefer to search for the MOST flavor with the LEAST alcohol because then I can drink more, and I also like the corollary flavors of fruit, "mineral" and brisk acidity.

"Anti-pleasure police" is an outworn trope that has overstayed whatever welcome it might ever have had. Must we really observe that different people derive different pleasures from different wines?

"Extreme and useless" again is high-energy rhetoric, but there's something Rush Limbaugh-ish about it, this notion that you can convince listeners by bellowing like a playground bully. That said, "extreme" is a reasonable judgement, about which reasonable people can differ, but I'd draw the line at "useless." As much as I take issue with the naturalistas, and I do, it is a decidedly USEFUL discussion to be having, because it takes place at the level of core values.

How does he know that "few care about" these things or this "movement?" In the wine world I live and work in, there are more people who care about these things than care about RP - if we're reduced to counting heads.

It's one thing to be provocative, but first one might try being responsible and coherent. Then provoke away.

I thought the rest of the items were persuasive and insightful. Gallant must have taken a pee break and Goofus commandeered the computer for item #7. ;-)
 
originally posted by Robert Dentice:
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Robert Dentice:

Well I think we are winning or making progress. Just ordered a bottle of Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin at SFO!
No kidding. Where?

Vino Volo in Terminal 2. The importer on the label is Return to Terrior.

RtT is based in CA. They took over the Pacalet portfolio earlier his year in CA. I'm not certain if they rep all the wines, but the pricing hasn't changed. I imagine these are current release wines you encountered?
 
2000 Allemand Sans Soufre is still drinking quite nicely and showing no signs of going anywhere unpleasant.

And I agree with Terry in many ways, in fact on Saturday, I had a 2001 JJ Prum Kabinett (cf para 7 and 8) that was for me one of the most enjoyable and specifically delicious and memorable (food, setting, contrast) wines I have had in quite some time. Probably years - among the long term context of many, much more highly regarded (and pricier) wines.
 
originally posted by mlawton:
And I agree with Terry in many ways, in fact on Saturday, I had a 2001 JJ Prum Kabinett (cf para 7 and 8) that was for me one of the most enjoyable and specifically delicious and memorable (food, setting, contrast) wines I have had in quite some time. Probably years - among the long term context of many, much more highly regarded (and pricier) wines.

That was a damn good bottle, wasn't it? I wonder if we will ever see notes on that one (if you believe in such a thing as notes, that is)?
 
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