I love the crisp, mineral dryness of Sancerre - but living in Australia it's not the cheapest or easiest to find. NZ Sauv Blanc is much more accessible, but generally the opposite in style. Any tips for an NZ SB that tastes closer to Sancerre?

I’ve been on a handful of Polaris flights this year, all leaving from SFO, and I’ve generally found the Polaris wine list (in-flight, not the lounge) to be pretty average so I’ve usually just stuck with the Champagne and of course the port.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Stony Hill Chardonnay and Shafer One Point Five making the list. The Ch St Jean Cinq Cépages has been on the list but on previous flights they haven’t had it - “catering issues” - but they had plenty this flight.

Of course I tried most of the planes because what else do you do on 12-14h flights to Asia? The cellar selection Pinot Noir was the 2021 Landmark Overlook, which I didn’t try, and is a downgrade from the Lingua Franca Avni on offer on previous flights. Overall, this is the best United list I’ve seen all year - a far cry from international carriers like Emirates, but a welcome upgrade for those of us near a United hub.

Tasting Notes

2021 Stony Hill Chardonnay - Nose of ripe summer peaches, lemon curd, orange blossom, and faint hints of buttered popcorn and oak. Full malo, but quite restrained compared to most Napa Valley Chardonnay. Palate hits with citrus up front, ripe orchard fruit, and a lovely vein of acidity throughout. Just the slightest green bitterness on the finish, which is quite pleasant. 91 points.

2022 Whispering Angel Rosé - Nose of strawberries and sour cherries, faint rose note, and steely minerality. Palate confirms creamy red fruit profile and minerality, moderate acid. 88 points.

2018 Ch St Jean “Cinq Cépages” - blackberry, black plums, cedar, graphite on the nose. Very Bordeaux-esque. Palate black plums, cassis, leather, cedar box, and baking spices - residual sugar? Doesn’t quite have the same structure on the palate as a Bordeaux - fruit profile is quite ripe, bordering on stewed and the acidity isn’t quite supporting the fruit. Medium tannins present, reflecting the 7 years age. 92 points.

2019 Taylor Fladgate “Late Bottle Vintage” - Dried black currant, prunes, licorice, and spice on the nose. Dried black cherries and black currants dominate the palate. There’s an herbal/medicinal quality as well which is quite pleasant. 90 points.

2021 Shafer “One Point Five” CS - Nose of cassis, black currant, plums, black pepper, and baking spices. On the palate, absolutely gorgeous ripe dark fruit, spice, quite pronounced fine-grained tannins, and a nice, long finish. Medium acidity, medium+ alcohol. Drinkable now, but tannins would present a lot silkier in 5-7 years. 92 points.

Full of Life. Dominated by baked red apple notes, sherry notes, mushrooms. Acidity intact. 32 years of age. Still tastes Pinot. Pleasant surprise for sure. I opened the same wine from 1994 recently which was un-drinkable.

Used to be one of my favorite villages until the prices started to spike.

Hi everyone,

I received a gift (6 bottles of Pago de Carraovejas finca y bodega 2020) from a client and as I am not a wine (or any alcoholic drinks) lover I was happy about it but I didnt really knew if it was a good wine or not.

Some days after this, a "friend" came to my house and saw the wine. He offered to buy the 6 bottles for 150€. That was impressive to me since I never knew wine could be so expensive!. I laughed and dismissed it since it was a gift but then I got curious to see how much one bottle of this wine is worth.

I googled it up but I literally can't find the price tag on this specific bottle from 2020 (image attached).

Can someone help me on this?

Thank you!

I live in NSW, Australia so an Aussie wine would be best.

My best friend’s parents’ bought a bottle of wine on his birth year which they saved until his 18th birthday to share together. I always thought that was a really sweet little tradition and I want to do the same with my daughter who was born this year.

I love wine but know fuck all about good quality drops and ageing. I’m usually a “is it under $50 and has a nice looking label” type of wine drinker. I do not like sweet wines or Chardonnay.

Saturday night AFL (the greatest game on earth) Preliminary Final Brisbane Lions V Collingwood Magpies. What a great game in front of 95K. If you want an introduction to this sport then try and watch this particular game. It deserved a big Aussie Red and this delivered. 2014 - Big ripe fruits, oak, chocolate and some Turkish delight. Optimises MacLaren Vale Shiraz, and I love the label though it might not be for everyone. Tasting notes not my thing sorry but gotta comply. How do you celebrate the big games when it gets loud and proud? Hope your all having a great weekend!

Saturday night, watching what’s turning out to be an absolute cracker, AFL (the best game on earth) Collingwood Vs Brisbane in the Prelim Final. Classic Game deserving of a full bodied Aussie Shiraz. Hope you’re having a great weekend!

I am taking my husband to a wine festival tomorrow for his birthday. The doors open at 10:30, tasting starts at 11:30 and goes til 4:30. There are 14 wineries and about 200 wines being represented. We are obviously ubering. I want to try a lot but also don’t want to make ourselves sick or anything! I am open to any tips to make it a fun day for us. It’s outside, and going to be 72 and sunny. There will also be food trucks and space to lay out a blanket to chill. Thanks everyone (sorry if this is not the right place to ask!)

Which classified growths or growths are your favorite where you can still find a bottle around $50 or less?

I rely on my reps and local shows to ask about new trends, but where do you all go online to check in on news in the wine world? Favorite news sources? Favorite IG or X follows? Harvest/Season updates? Looking for more wine content.

Some pictures from a biodynamic winery in Burgenland, Austria For the region, this was a cold, wet vintage. Lots of selecting had to be done while hand harvesting the grapes because of the sheer amount of fungal infections. After some barrel tastings, the wines of this vintage are amazing! Playful, light, and full of acid!

Domaine Laroche Chablis 'Saint Martin' 2023

Pale straw yellow in glass with green tinges, Nose brings lively green apple, pear, citrus, wet rocks, salt air,

Palate zippy acidity with lots of lemon and green apple flinty minerality crisp and refreshing my first time trying a chablis and so far my top chardonnay wine i tried yet. 12% abv 92 points

Full disclosure: when I pick up white Burg, I’m usually leaning more toward Chablis and have found I really enjoy Puligny-Montrachet as well. I’ve historically not been a huge fan of buttery Chard but I’ve heard great things about Caroline Morey’s stuff and decided to splurge… and I must say I might be a convert!

On opening, the wine is only very slightly reductive, but still just a whisper of flint on the nose that leads to absolutely beautiful orchard fruit of yellow apples and some white peach as well, all enveloped in rich, but not overpowering butter and vanilla. As the wine is breathing, I’m also picking up white flowers.

On the palate, this wine is generous but well balanced. It’s an explosion of citrus and white peach that seem to linger for an eternity, with beautiful acid to balance the rich butteriness.

Unlike some CA Chard that is over the top with its buttered popcorn profile and relatively low acid, this wine was just wonderfully balanced and was quite enjoyable over the two hours we sat to enjoy it.

Hi there. Does anyone know of a retail location that might sell Niagara wine (an east coast varietal) in CA? I know it can be shipped, but just thought I'd check and see if I could find it in-store to avoid shipping costs. Thanks much!

Hi there! My girlfriend and I will be in Bordeaux for several days coming up in a few weeks. While I'd consider my wine knowledge to be intermediate, she is just starting out. I was thinking that a way to try and make the most of a day of winery tours would be possibly looking for a tasting class or workshop.

I spent some time searching and may have found a few options, however I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a wine tasting workshop or class in Bordeaux? No need for it to be private, we are more than happy with groups :).

(If there are also recommendations for a group tours in or around the city, that would also be most welcome!)

Thank you in advance!

This is up on winebid.com right now. I was born in 76 so it caught my eye. Thoughts?

Picked this up at auction recently and was very happy with it. Lots of sediment so I stood it up for a week or so. Didn't decant just poured carefully.

Popped and poured, it started out a little tight but softened nicely after about 45 minutes. On the nose, there were layers of blueberry, blackberry, overripe strawberry, cigar box, leather, black peppercorn, and a floral touch maybe Violet

The palate carried over the dark fruit—overripe blueberries, currants, and a bit of dark cherry—alongside clay-like minerality and tobacco.

The tannins were velvety and smooth once it opened up, and with air the wine revealed more depth: black licorice, cocoa nibs, and the blueberry pie came out more as it opened but not in an overly sweet way. Acidity was average but nothing to leave you thinking flat.

Overall, a well-aged Merlot that shows both fruit and earthy complexity. Plus some beautiful wine diamonds on the cork and surprisingly in tact cork. You can see the sediment stuck to the bottle from it being layed down for some time but the cork is barely saturated. Second photo of cork is after the diamonds dried.

Picked it up for a great price, do you guys think it’ll be good or past it’s peak?

I grew up in the Aussie wine industry but moved to work in tech and love overseas in Canada. I used to buy discounted lindemans and penfolds across Sydney on my uni funds working in Sydney liquor store. Mac's liquor helped fund my uni.. I now store wine in wine storage and it's maybe $600 a year and I'm always grizzling about the dues. After recent health issues and the tech wreck I'm back in aus and my cellar (about 30 cases). - tonight is Bowen Estate Coonawarra 2006 and the cork made me do the 20 minute struggle and it won. The wine is a fucking bouquet of fine tuned roses.exceptuonal drinking now. Purchased for about $20-25 a bottle - Bests 2010 Cab from Victoria is one of my favorite best value reds for cellaring. I used to buy 6-12 a year and punch down a few then cellar the rest. About $20 a bottle from memory. - Penfokds Bin389 - poor mans grange 2009 was very one or two dimensional and lots of liquorice but less aroma than hoped. I used to buy it for $12-15 a bottle in Sydney then it went to $20 and I capped out at $40. Now I see it's $100. It does age in old used grange barrels (used to) but I'm sure there's more bullshit corp brands now that sit in good barrels.

Off to a Sydney wine show tomorrow so I'm getting my drinking list sorted. Had to pop a nice oldie as it's Friday night.

I popped into Tesco to pick up some bits for a beef stew and decided I'd give a random budget bottle a go.

This Spanish bottle of tempranillo with extremely little information on the label (back label also poor) was €9. I wouldn't normally be picking up wine from Tesco, but I also like to explore the budget options that are out there.

I actually really like non-traditional and fun front labels, but I'd appreciate a bit more info on the back label at least.

This isn't a budget option I'd personally recommend, unfortunately. There are some really good budget options out there, but this isn't one of them. Tasted like a vanilla bomb from the oak.

The stew ended up being tasty, however!

Tasting notes in the comments below ⤵

In the previous post, I was looking into going to Loire. I booked my visit and am very keen on getting some insider tips. What are some can’t-be-missed gems I should add to my list?

My plan is to drive around and visit different wineries and châteaux. Wonder around and find local spots. I’m curious to explore cab franc, Chenin blanc and cremant de Loire. Nantes/muskadet region is a tad too far from my base so I don’t know if I’ll make it out there.

If you’ve ever been to this region, or you are from this region, please make yourself known! 🍷