Follow This Blog Or The Wine Gets It!

This is a bottle of 1982 Chateau Margaux. It is the rarest and most expensive bottle of wine in this picture. Its life is in danger and only you and a few thousand of your friends can save it. To find out how you’ll have to read this blog….

 

Robert Parker, the great and powerful wizard of wine, has taken his leave somewhere over the Alsace Lorraine-bow, passing the batonnâge to a new generation of wine bloggers. I only mention this because you should know I’m not some mercenary wine blogger trying to take advantage of Parker’s departure from The Wine Advocate. I wouldn’t stoop that low. No, I write about wine for the money, even though writing about vin de pays very little.

Truthfully, it’s not really money that I need, but a platform. At least that’s what my friends in publishing tell me. Apparently it’s not enough to write about wine; people actually have to read what you write if you want to get published. Who knew?

What’s more, it doesn’t matter if your writing is good, what matters is how many “followers” or “friends” you have that “like” you. Becoming a wine blogger is like joining some weird cult. It starts with drinking wine but I suspect it ends with drinking the Kool-Aid.

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Spot The Frog

A Blind Tasting Of A Dozen California Reds and One Bordeaux

Recently my friends and I blind-tasted a dozen small production Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignons and Cabernet-based blends from the 2005 vintage. We taste wine blind so we won’t be influenced by the name and reputation of the winery and because we feel more at home drinking wine out of a dirty paper bag.

In a game I like to call “Spot the Frog” we included a 2005 Grand Cru Classé from St. Emilion Grand Cru. When wines are young it’s not hard to pick out the French ringer in a group of California wines but as wine ages the differences become less apparent. Identifying the lone Bordeaux in a blind tasting had some tasters feeling a little tongue-tied, but I brazenly predicted I could spot the frog with my tongue tied behind my back.

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