Once again, Blogger has changed formats. If I could get my act together to post here more often, I'd go elsewhere. But until then, ah well. Here I am.

So while I'm here, singing the blues about Blogger (but hmmm, this new format actually seems pretty ok), I'll mention, again, the amazing consistency and quality of one of my very favorite California Cabernets. Philip Togni 1991 Cabernet with buffalo tenderloin tonight, partly because I've been noticing some fatigue on a number of '91s I've been opening lately. No danger of that here. In fact, I suspect it's not quite come into its own yet. Yummy.

(Since I'm in gripe mode, though, a word on the insidious influence of restaurant hegemony in today's world of food and wine. First it was true prime beef. No longer available to you and me, it's been reclassified to hide the dirty deed and what you now see on supermarket shelves labeled "prime" is what our mothers bought under the label "choice." The good stuff goes to the restaurants. Same with the better wines, as you probably already know if you're interested enough in wine to be reading this blog. So now the plague has spread to fish (the incredibly delicious pacific black cod a/k/a sable, which I used to enjoy weekly, is now reserved for restaurants, so sorry) and game (the better cuts of eland, buffalo and venison are becoming increasingly hard to come by). Next to go: fresh vegetables, such as they are. Yeah, well. . . )

And while I'm on the subject of surprises, Michele Chiarlo is a producer that gets little glory, but I stumbled upon the Barbera d'Asti La Court last year, and have been picking up what I can of it because, frankly, I love Piedmont wines but don't love paying the rapidly escalating prices for them. Right now, I'm finding the 1998 more available and very ready to drink, so if the '99 had a bit more nuance, I don't really miss it. For some reason, I seem to be finding the Barberas from Asti more interesting than those from Alba recently. And I've been finding them at better prices, generally, so there you go.

Everything from Europe is going up dramatically, so if you're looking to stock up, try to find stuff that was imported last year. The dollar/euro thing is just putting too many affordable wines out of reasonable reach. So, in the meantime, if the folks out in California don't get too greedy and figure they can get a free price hike out of the situation, westward ho, I say.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much time for wine blogging lately, though, fortunately, the same can't be said of wine drinking. Unfortunately, there haven't been a whole lot of memorable bottles to post about. Fortunately, there have been one or two.

Once upon a time I bought at least a few bottles of Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet every year and, when I could find it, a bottle or two of the Napa, as well. On trips out to the winery, I even managed to score a few of the now-defunct Bonny's Vineyards. Then they started getting snooty with their pricing and there were just too many better bottles out there for less money, so there went another vertical. I can't say that I'm too sorry, either, because as luscious as these wines have always been on release, too many of them haven't aged as well as I would have expected. Once the primary fruit subsides, it seems there's not a whole lot there other than that dill-scented American oak which, while it's a great accompaniment to fruit, just doesn't play well as a solo. My last purchase of the Napa, though, was the '92, which also happened to be first year that the Bonny's was added to the Napa blend. So far from a disappointment, this wine just blew me away. The fruit was still there, still ripe but developed and well balanced with the oak and what remains of the tannins. Unfortunately (back to that again), I took no notes and now can't even remember what we had to eat with it. It's been sitting on the buffet as a reminder to blog it for several weeks now while its memory has faded to little more than a determination to open another one soon while I know the getting's good.

My other pleasant surprise (and now for something completely different) was a 1980 Robert Ampeau Meursault Perrieres. As much as I've heard about the legendary longevity of Ampeau's whites, I really expected this bottle to be little more than drain-o by now, especially as it had spent some years in less than ideal cellar conditions. Not only wasn't it shot, it was truly lovely, with elegant fruit and a sort of grace about it that commanded . . . respect. Again, I have no notes to jog my memory as to the particulars but suffice it to say that I was reminded, again, of why great Burgundies are held in such high esteem. I'm certain that this bottle was not treated with the care it deserved and yet, more than 23 years past its vintage date was showing beautifully.

Have I raved here about the Arrowood Malbec before? Yes, I see that I have. Well, it was time to try one of the '94s, and I don't know about being less massive than the '93s but, again, it's still a baby. A delicious baby, but a baby. I just love this wine and haven't been able to find it for years, so maybe it's a good thing that they're taking forever to come around. This time we tried it with a grilled flank steak marinated in chimichurri. Yeah, it was sort of an Argentinian theme. Worked, though.

Ok, one last quickie. 1995 Contino Rioja Crianza. This wine has just been consistently fabulous ever since I first bought it, so I kept going back and buying as much as I could find. Last year, I came across a batch of the '96 Reserva. The one I tried needed time to integrate. But the '95 Crianza was wonderful right out of the gate and it's never closed up or shut down since. Large, dark, smooth and supple with beautiful balance and dark, earthy fruit, it's really sort of out of its own league. This is by no means a classic Rioja. It's dressed up for the international stage. But like the '95 Artadi Vinas de Gain (which hasn't held up nearly as well, IMO), it delivers a boatload of flavor and drinking pleasure with a definite Tempranillo twist. Highly recommended.

Frescobaldi Pomino Rosso 1997. This wine has really come into its own. I started buying this stuff back in the '86 vintage and I've remained a fan ever since. It's always been a good deal, but just as I'm running out of the '97s, I'm finding a lusciousness I never noticed before. I'll be on the prowl for some '99s if they're still around. And I'll keep them a little longer.

There's not a lot of information out there on this wine, but it appears that it's mostly Sangiovese with a little Pinot Nero and a smidge of Merlot thrown in. At least that's what more recent vintages (starting with 1998) are composed of. The '97 is deep and earthy and rich, if not particularly complex. Fabulous with pasta with tomatoes and onions and kalamata olives.

Excuse me. My glass appears to be empty.

Happiness is having your very favorite California Chardonnay cost $15. Or less. I kid you not. There are many, many California Chards I haven't tried yet, and there are many others that have impressed me extremely favorably until I saw the price tag, but nobody makes a long-lived, full-bodied, well-rounded, delicious and affordable Cal Chard like Josh Jensen. And, no, I'm not talking about the often over-oaked, flamboyant and sometimes quirky, sometimes awesome Mt. Harlan bottling.

I opened my last bottle of 1996 Calera Central Coast Chardonnay Friday night with a scrumpious grilled Steelhead salmon. While my $35 Wine Spectator-touted 96 Beringers have long since given up the ghost, this wine was still youthful, rambunctious and thoroughly tasty, with notes of pineapple and honeysuckle and a gorgeous mouthfeel that almost made me reluctant to swallow it. (Er ... anyway ... ) The 1998 is drinking beautifully, but is way short of showing its best stuff yet and I'm not opening my 2000s for a while yet. As you can see, I've somehow managed to miss the "best" vintages in these case purchases lately, but it really doesn't seem to matter. I had a few 94s and 95s and I have a few half bottles of the 97, and the wine is consistently great and greatly consistent, vintage to vintage. If I had to choose one California Chardonnay to stock my cellar with, this would be it. (Fortunately, though, I don't. Variety is indeed the spice of life.)

The battle is pitched. And it looks like the next stop may very well be the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit joined one other federal appeals court (the Seventh Circuit) in upholding state laws that effectively ban the direct interstate shipment of wine (Swedenburg v. Kelly). The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eleventh Circuits have already gone the other way.

It's going to be interesting to see where this ends up. The Second Circuit is bucking the tide here, and the Supreme Court has already handed down at least one anti-protectionist ruling on interstate wine shipment. But that was twenty years ago, a different Court and a different issue (tariffs), and the decision is in any case (somewhat unconvincingly, IMO) distinguished by the Second Circuit.

There is a twist to Swedenburg that may make a difference, but it shouldn't. Rather than banning direct sales of wine from out-of-state, the New York law in question simply requires any out-of-state winery that wants to engage in direct shipment to "establish a presence" in New York. An office or warehouse is sufficient, along with production of the necessary paperwork and filing fees. And there's the rub -- and the error in the court's reasoning, as I see it. The Virginia winery that brought the suit apparently presented evidence that the costs of complying with the "presence" regulations were so burdensome as to negate the benefits of direct access to the market. To which the court's (wholly inadequate) response, in a footnote, was basically "too bad." In the absence of a serious analysis of whether the "presence" option is rendered nugatory by virtue of its economic impact, the court's reliance on this distinction is misplaced.

Moreover, the Second Circuit panel refused to see the New York regulations as economic protectionism but instead viewed them as a legitimate means of accountability. Perhaps their myopia on this score is is partly due to the fact that the real protagonist in the protectionist wine wars isn't really the "state," but rather the league of dishonorable wholesalers and retailers hiding behind its skirts. But reading the Swedenburg opinion, you'd get the impression that New York is the only state in the Union that has a substantial interest in regulating the conduct of the producers and purveyors of alcoholic beverages within its borders. The "presence" requirement, says the court, is reasonable because New York regulators can't be expected to travel to Virginia (or California, or Oregon or Washington) to make sure that wineries are adhering to New York's high standards of cleanliness, record-keeping and social responsibility. That argument is absurd on its face, unless it can be demonstrated that there is something lacking in Virginia's (or any other wine exporting state's) own regulatory aparatus. A law restricting the import of wine from any state that didn't satisfy certain basic regulatory standards would be a horse of a different color. But that's not what this case was about.

Again, it's an interesting battle that's far from over. Stay tuned.

(For the full text of Swedenburg v. Kelly, click here, then on the "Current Month" link under "Decisions" (left hand column) and then on 02-9511 under "Docket" -- it's about halfway down.)

One has to wonder what James Laube is using for taste buds these days.

After reading last November's Wine Spectator ten-years-after ("TYA") review of the 1993 California Cabs, I sort of got a little worried. I didn't buy a lot of '93s, but the ones I did buy, I bought by the case, and I'd tasted them and thought they were pretty darn good. One or two of them got "respectable" (i.e., 90+) scores in this review. But a lot of them didn't.

This isn't the first time I've noticed that wines heavily hyped by WS when they came out got less than spectacular reviews once they'd had a chance to develop some. You'd think they'd try to cover up this kind of discrepancy, but my suspicion is they just don't credit their readers with long-term memory. Or they rely heavily on turnover.

Anyway, curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to crack a '93 Philip Togni Cab tonight. Laube thought this was a "beef stew" of a cabernet. Well, whatever floats his boat. I love the way Philip Togni makes wine. I'd still be buying by the caseload if he still shipped to Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, wine shipping (in case you hadn't noticed) is going through a little prohibitionary period right now and Pennsylvania (despite its attempts to prove otherwise) is still the Neanderthal of wine markets in this part of the country, so . . .

Anyway, if you have a few of these beauties stashed, sleep well tonight. They might not have totally burst out of their cocoon yet, but they're already providing lots of pleasure. The bottle tonight paired perfectly with a delicious less-than-medium rare grilled buffalo tenderloin. Every sip was a delight, with the exception of the last half ounce, which contained the only evidence of sedimentary pucker. Some unexpected tartaric crystals on the bottom of the cork were a bit puzzling, but without noticable effect. It happens. The wine was about as far from "beef stew" as I can imagine a wine being, with wave after wave of subtle fruit and mineral nuances and a rich, full mouthfeel. California but with a Bordeaux veneer. Classic Togni.

Laube gave this an 88 in his TYA. I'd give it a 94 minimum. But who's counting?

Don't mind me. I just can't seem to keep up. But despair over the Philadelphia Eagles' failure, yet again, to get to the Superbowl, has driven me to the blog. We made up a huge pot of chili to enjoy with the game tonight, and it (the chili) was pretty good, though a little heavy on the hot smoked Spanish paprika (pimentón) (it's marvelous stuff, but it packs a wallop and a little goes a really long way.)

Also poured in a healthy splash of 1994 Cline Zinfandel Reserve, which still packs quite a punch of its own. The rest of the bottle went really well with the chili. Right now I'm a little descriptor-challenged, and the ones that come to mind are football-related and quite impolite. I'll try to make a point of getting back here more often, but I've also resolved to get to the gym more often and so far I'm not doing too well on that score, either. Blaming it on the weather, you see.

Hmmm. Rip Van Wineblogger awakens. But only for a quick blink. A lovely last bottle of the 1983 Pichon Lalande tonight was surprisingly tasty, still fairly supple, though it tired quickly in the glass, with lovely pure fruit, very little sediment and close to a perfect match with a grilled venison tenderloin. This has been one of those hate-to-part-with-the-last-of-a-great-one deals, where the perfect occasion never seemed to present itself. At some point you have to give it up and just drink the thing. This wine had more punch and pizazz a few years ago, but it was still a delight. Maybe it will inspire us to open a few more of the fading stars in the near future. Maybe I'll even remember to post about 'em.

Oh, yikes! I've been away so long they've gone and changed the whole set-up on me. What a slacker!

Well, I'm still a little under the weather from an overindulgence last night, so no flowery prose here. I'll just mention a few of the things that we opened and you'll understand why (there were only four people here).

Dinner at our place in summer usually starts out with a bottle of Prosecco, in this case a NV Loredan Gasparini Venegazzu. The first bottle was incredibly difficult to open and totally flat. It'll be fine for cooking with. The second was yummy.

This was our first experiment at home with alligator loin, so we didn't know quite what to expect. The meat was delicious, grilled with just a little olive oil and Joe's Stuff. The 1989 Prince Poniatowski Vouvray L'Aigle Blanc turned out to be a pretty good match.

And, for the main course, a lovely ostrich fillet. Now we almost always have a Central Coast Pinot Noir with ostrich, but we wanted to try something different. Our guests were wondering how their last bottle of 1986 Pesquera Ribero del Duero (Crianza) was doing, and since we still had two and knew they were probably fading, we opened one. It was fading fast, a shadow of its former self. Don't you just hate that?

Next up, a 1993 Anderson's Conn Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. I last posted on that one here, so I thought I knew what we were in for, but this bottle bore no resemblance. It was tight as a drum and it never opened up. Don't you just hate that, too?

Anyway, both of these bottles were put aside, and we went for the Pinot. There was something horribly wrong with the 1997 Hartley-Ostini (Hitching Post) Bien Nacido. A raging VA (volatile acidity) problem, not typical in my experience with this wine, that was impossible to get around. It was refreshing after the Cab, but only for a sip or two. That bottle also got put aside, and it's still there.

Maybe my taste buds were just numbed out at that point, but the usually excellent 1997 Foxen Bien Nacido didn't thrill me, either. It was, however, an improvement over the Hitching Post by a mile. Everyone agreed that it's hard to beat the ostrich/Pinot match. Although California Syrah, which we didn't try last night, can work pretty well, too.

Well, at this point, having had too much wine to know better, no one wanted to stop. So the Pesquera and the Conn Valley ended up getting drunk as well. I don't believe I participated in that part much, but I confess that it gets a little fuzzy.

So that's the story. Hey, I know one or two of you are reading this blog, or at least linking on it momentarily. Drop me a line sometime and remind me to post something. I'm getting forgetful in my old age.

How often do you taste a Zinfandel that you'd describe as "silky?" Not often enough, I'll bet. For one thing, common wisdom says they don't age, and, well, young and silky don't usually go together. The 1991 Lytton Springs Winery Lytton Springs Zin (a/k/a "black label") is no longer young, but its texture alone is reason enough to try to hunt one down. There's a touch of old-style about this one, with its age bringing out more raisin and fewer berry flavors, but for me it was a delight, and it's still packed with plenty of fruit. I've always loved this wine, no matter the vintage -- including the '89, which was probably my favorite Zin from that lackluster year. Ridge bought the winery (which used to make a nice Cab, as well) in 1991, but kept the old "black" Lytton Springs label through 1994, after which they renamed the wine Ridge Sonoma Station. I could swear they messed with the formula, as well. It's never been the same since.

One nice Cab. And not enough of it. Lady and/or gentleman, I present to you Girard Reserve Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1990. Still going places, by the way. I confess I do appreciate a little eucalyptus in my red wines from time to time. I'm not quite sure how it found its way into this one, but it did. I've often been amused to find, on visits to California, a big old eucalyptus tree growing right next to a vineyard I've always associated with that flavor. Whether that's the case here, I couldn't say, but this wine went beautifully with a very nice porterhouse steak and, although it got a bit dense and inky toward the bottom of the bottle, there was an abundance of rich, dark fruit, with that minty, sassy euc thing providing a refreshing zing throughout. If you have two, try one soon. If not . . . oh, well.

Merlot. Isn't is almost a cliché these days? At least the California varietal type, I mean. Well, there still are some superlative examples out there, and one of them has been made for many years by Arrowood. I drank my last bottle of the '90 Saturday, and it was mellow, balanced and beautiful. This isn't a wine I buy every year because, frankly, it isn't a wine I can find every year. But I do look out for it and it does reward.

(Oh, and remember what I was saying about boycotting French wines being bullshit? I changed my mind. Buy California! Or Spain! Or even Italy! But what I already have in my cellar, I'm drinking, dammit. Not pouring down the drain. That stupid, I'm not. So....)

In the 1990 mode, we also opened a bottle of the Pichon Baron. Oooo, la la! Still drowsy and not quite integrated, this was a killer bottle that probably would have been more fun to drink by itself than with a hunk of buffalo tenderloin. I frankly don't know what possessed me to open a bottle of Bordeaux with buffalo to begin with. While the Arrowood was a beautiful match, this one sort of strutted around insisting it was important and refusing to play its part in the ensemble. To its credit, however, it maintained this position throughout the meal and refused to surrender.

Ok, ok, enough of that already. It's true, though. The Pichon shows every indication of greatness and is lovely (even if a bit closed) today, but still has a way to go. Something to look forward to.

A few brief and foggy notes.

We opened a 1987 Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet a few nights ago. Reeking of volatile acidity, with nasty vegetal stuff behind it, we just let it sit and went for a 1991 La Jota Howell Mountain Selection, which was massive, dense and dark and got more so as we got deeper into the bottle. The last pour was like ink. I'll let these sit a while yet and hope the fruit lasts. It's there now but hard to define other than as something like "blackberry thicket."

But the Silver Oak saga wasn't over. The next night, the VA had mostly blown off. The typical SO flavors were more evident. It was OK. Before the prices at SO got tacky, I bought lots of the stuff. I didn't like the '87 Alex much when I tasted it on release and didn't buy any (I bought a double dose of Napa instead, which sold for the same price back then), and this bottle was contributed by my S.O. But there is some question about these '87s generally. Are they going to mature before the fruit dies? And is anyone else getting sick of asking this question?

On another note, I've gone and gotten a serious revived crush on Brunello di Montelcino. Must be the change of seasons. With spring trying to take over from one of the nastiest winters in recent memory, I'm reluctantly releasing my passion for Rhones in favor of lighter reds. But care is required. I don't have nearly the stash of Brunellos that I have of Châteauneufs. We tried a 1990 Nardi with an absolutely delicious game dinner at a restaurant a few weeks ago. Near the top of its game and possibly a touch past. But perfect with just about every dish from quail to venison. And just the other night, a revelation. We've been making a Jacques Pepin recipe for veal scallopine with shallots, amagnac and a touch of cream for years without finding a completely satisfactory wine match. Burgundies were good but never a bullseye. A 1988 Col D'Orcia Brunello hit the mark spot on. Another star just beginning to fade. Maybe. Don't know why I didn't think of this before. Aged Brunellos are amazingly versatile and go with lots of dishes that are too "red" for white but not "big" enough for a hearty red. Unfortunately, they are now also expensive, as well.

I used to actually be a fan of brett (brettanomyces). I kind of like that animal, leathery component in red wine. But it's finally starting to occur to me that it tends to overshadow the wine's own unique character to the point where all really bretty wines start to taste alike. That's a bad thing.

I'm sorry, but this is just plain stupid.

The no politics rule is about to be broken, because I need to make it clear that I sympathize COMPLETELY with the sentiments expressed here, but come on, already! Just who exactly do these guys think they're hurting by pouring out the '86 Margaux and the '95 Dom Perignon?

"In all, Tim Wright and Tommy Cortopassi, co-owners of the restaurant, unceremoniously dumped 12 bottles of vintage French wine worth about $1,000 into a white plastic bucket.

"Wright and Cortopassi poured with gusto on the sidewalk outside their front door on South Virginia Street to protest the continued opposition of France in the United Nations to the U.S. campaign against Iraq."

I've tried to make this point before, elsewhere, and I'll try again here, so listen up, all 3 of you. Boycotts are stupid and usually end up hurting the wrong people. The people who make their living from growing grapes in France, many of whom can't afford to drink their own wines (although that certainly isn't true of, say, Corinne Mentzelopoulos) aren't the ones making foreign policy. But if you feel you need to punish them anyway, or to deprive the French government of the tax revenue from the wine you buy, don't buy it! "The French" have already been paid for the bottles that went down the drain in Reno last week. They couldn't care less if that wine passed through a human digestive system on its way to the sewer. And I'd bet some poor American shmuck is going to end up getting the cost of those wines added to his dinner tab. Let's get real here, folks!

Okay. Well. We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog.

The problem with allowing so much time to go by between posts here is that I get intimidated by the sheer volume of stuff I want to write about which, naturally, leads me to procrastinate further. So I'll just jump in here in no particular order and ramble a bit.

Well, speaking of Aussie Shiraz, our wine group had a blind tasting of 'em a few nights after I posted on the Charles Cimicky (immediately below, in case you didn't follow that link). You'd have thought I would have recognized them instantly, but I didn't. Which is to say, I guess I did but publicly rejected that intuition as being wrong because, well, the wines had no bacon fat, big, ripe cherries or spice. Which is to say that they all tasted a whole lot like the Shiraz I'd just noted had the same deficits a few days earlier. This is discouraging, because I've always liked the stuff and I'm now despairing of ever being able to find one I like again. This is especially disconcerting because I'd much rather be buying wine from Australia right now than wine from France. (Ooops, that's politics, let's move on.)

1996 Sanford Pinot Noir Barrel Select (Sanford & Benedict Vineyard). I had a few bad bottles of this a few months ago. Or perhaps they were asleep. This was was neither bad nor sleepy. It was quite nice, though I thought it got a little rough around the edges toward the bottom of the bottle. I'm noticing that California Pinots seem to go through a lot of ups and downs -- at least the ones I've been drinking. I thought the '96s were all goners. Not so.

Ah, here's a beaut. 1993 Arrowood Malbec. What a fabulous bottle of wine. And, frankly, nowhere near ready to drink. The first glass was heavenly but still more in-your-face than I usually like with food. It turned out to have a love affair with my nicely dry-aged NY Strip, though. The concentration and depth in this wine and the lushness of the fruit as it wends its way through its 10th year of life are very impressive. The rest of the bottle was still somewhat closed, though. Delicious anyway, but definitely asking for more time. I hope I live long enough to see these come into their full maturity, 'cause I only have one left but then it's time to start on the '94s. I'm likely to try one of them first, actually, because it's entirely possible they're not quite as massive.

A few briefs (it's been a while on these): 1990 Viader. Developing just beautifully, so tasty it's hard to stop drinking. The bottle was gone before we knew it. 1994 Flora Springs Trilogy. Following the Viader, there actually seemed to be more stuff here, but it was a touch on the premature side. Totally enjoyable now but obviously still holding something back. If you only have a few, try one now anyway to gauge your own schedule for the rest.

I'd just let this sit here while I go do some prep for dinner, but this is Blogger, and you never know. So I'll put it up, just in case someone comes along looking for something to read. More soon. Really.

I rarely post on my other blog when I've had wine. For some reason I feel I have to be (relatively) sober when discussing politics, religion and, well, the other stuff I dwell upon there. Here, though, I find a glass by my side helps the flow of ideas.

Tonight we opened one of the first of our fabled '98 Aussie Shirazes. Shiraz's? Whatever. 1998 Charles Cimicky Shiraz Signature, RP some large score, as I recall, highly recommended or "awesome" by the proprietor of the establishment from which it was purchased. Right. Okay, well, it has an "awesome" amount of oak, that's for sure, but the only other awesome thing about it was how awesomely (is that a word?) it tasted and smelled like an overripe Zinfandel blend (e.g., healthy doses of Petite Sirah, Carignane, Alicante Bouschet, Mourvedre, a touch of Grenache, whatever). This kind of wine can be lots of fun, occasionally, but when I open a Shiraz or a Syrah, I expect at least a modicum of bacon fat, some big, ripe cherries and absolutely, positively some substantial element of spice. Not here.

On the other hand, before I start sounding too high and mighty, I believe I may have been a bit too hasty in my judgment of 1990 Burgundies (yes, from the mundane to the sublime we go.) That judgment was largely fueled by the fact that the LOML purchased a number of 1990 Amiot-Servelle Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes several years ago, with which we've been steadily disappointed over the past year or two. Sunday night, the one we opened was so sour, so acidic, so fruit-less, so, well, bad that we decided to apply the pump and move on to a '95 Girardin Volnay Clos des Chênes (quite delicious and robust, though not particularly complex). But upon re-examinining it (the Amiot-Servelle) tonight, we discovered quite a soft, round, layered bottle of Pinot, a bit tired but whispering of greater things. The flavors in this wine at uncorking suggested that it's well over the hill, but if that were the case, there's no way it could have been as enjoyable as it was tonight after two days in vacuum. I believe we'll hold the last few bottles for a year or three more. They can't get any worse than the initial impression the other night and I'm beginning to suspect that they're just now beginning to wake up.

Happy New Year, one and all. It's not as if I haven't been drinking over the past few weeks, but nothing memorable enough to mention. Well, that's not entirely true. We opened a '95 Ridge Geyserville last night. They just keep getting better and better. Last year, we opened the '93 and the '95 together. My neighbor, who isn't a big wine drinker but knows what she likes, preferred the '93. She found it much more, well, user friendly. So we did a reprise last night. She still loves the '93 but she's now beginning to "get" the '95. It's always nice to hear a fresh perspective on good wine (and bad wine, too) from someone who has no pretensions or agendas and just speaks from the 'buds. My guess is that by next year, the '95 will be better still.

Our last '90 René Engel Clos Vougeot was consumed a few weeks ago with immense enjoyment, long sighs and smacking of lips. It was, indeed, a treasure. Some say the '90s are still in their infancy, but that's not what I'm finding. My cellar conditions were, admittedly, not so good for several years, but I like fruit in my Burgundy and I'm not so sure I want to trade it all in for those secondary flavors that sometimes come around later and sometimes don't. Anyway, we had no regrets about this bottle, except perhaps for the overbearing waiter who decided that our presenting it to him to open was an invitation to engage us in wine conversation. One reason I prefer to enjoy such bottles in the privacy of my own home rather than take them to BYOB restaurants.

I did discover an inexpensive but very nice little non-vintage champagne recently. Since traffic on this blog is so light, I'll happily share it without fear of cutting off my own supply. Hah! Raymond Henriot Brut. There ya go. I'm afraid I can't remember enough specifics to describe it, but it really grabbed attention in the midst of a group of both similarly and somewhat higher priced bottles (it goes for around $20, I believe). Good stuff.

After this week, though, I'm going to cut back on the bubbly for a bit. It happens every year. Bubble burn-out. Time for some concentration on those big, heavy reds that always seem to taste their best in the dead of winter with rich, comforting food and a roaring fire. Looking forward to it.

OK, mini-vert: There are a few California cabernets that over the years have been sufficiently accessible, very reasonably priced and still special enough that I made a point of buying a case or half-case every year since the early '90s. In the last few years, I've been forced to drop most of them, usually because the price is no longer quite so "reasonable" (Montelena, Viader, Silver Oak) or because they'll no longer ship to Pennsylvania and so I've been knocked off the mailing list (Togni).

Anderson's Conn Valley Vineyard is the last holdout, probably because the reviews have been little tepid over the past few years, although I'm not sure why. Todd Anderson's wines, at least to me, often aren't so attractive young, which seems to be the sine qua non of "quality" these days (i.e., will a restaurant be able to sell a lot of it at $150 a bottle within a year of its release?) In this case, perhaps not. At a tasting we did in the spring of 2001, the 1997 was already closing down.

I thought it would be interesting to check out those "lesser" vintages of the last decade (plus), so we opened an '89, a '93, a '96 and a '98. With the exception of the '98, which I suspect will also come around, they were surprisingly good. Most unexpectedly, the '89 was still vibrant, with a sassy red fruit zing that reminded me of a Sweet Tart. '89 was generally just a lousy, diluted year in Napa, but I recall Todd saying when we visited the winery a few years later that he was pretty proud of his '89s, which is why we made a point of digging some up.

Anyway, the hit of the night was the '96, which had a definite cedar/cigar box thing happening wrapped in really sweet dark red fruit. I also liked the '93 quite a lot, but it had a little too much of an earthy, roasted nut nuance for some people. All in all, I'd say these wines were delicious but a bit on the simple side. They all lacked the complexity to qualify as first class, but I'm glad to them in my cellar.

The Ruffinos were an entirely different story. The Ducale Oro is Ruffino's top of the line Chianti Classico Riserva. It's another wine that's fallen out of favor in recent years and I wanted to see why. I've had the opportunity to try quite a few of the '85s, '86s and '88s over the years and have always been impressed. At this tasting, we opened the '88, '90, '95 and '97, without question the top vintages of that decade, but none of them showed very well.

Right off the bat, I made a mistake. I had fully intended to taste the Chiantis before the Cabs, but I numbered the bottles wrong (it was a blind tasting) and by the time I realized it, the first flight had been poured. After the rich, lush Cabernets, these wines tasted thin and dull, and it just goes to show how important such choices can be. But, that said, the wines were disappointing. As I said, I've tried the '88 several times before with meals and have always found it too young but promising, with none of the sour, tired flavors it had here.

Which brings up another point. Chiantis, for me, anyway, are food wines. They aren't fun to sip by themselves unless they've been manipulated with lots of new oak and/or excessive ripening for that purpose. So I'm going to reserve my judgment for now and hope that these wines will surprise and delight under better circumstances.

I'm accumulating quite a pile of things to post on here, and the problem is I've already forgotten what half of them tasted like. I have written notes to refresh my memory on the mini-vertical tasting I mentioned earlier, so I'm going to put that off just a bit longer.

From the Central California Coast. 1997 Hiching Post Syrah, Rodney's Vineyard. Wow. I've had the luxury of getting to taste these at regular intervals over the past few years and they're really starting to open up. The last one, about a year ago, was too explosively fruity to go well with food. This one was much calmer, still very fruity and really nice with grilled ostrich, which I usually pair with a Pinot from the same area. 1996 Foxen Vineyard Bien Nacido Pinot Noir, also with grilled ostrich, was at its peak. Gorgeous, almost a shame to drink with food but more of a shame not to. From top to bottom, one delightful mouthful after another of soft, pliable red fruit, long, exotic finish, round and mellow and just delicious. Most of the '96s I've opened lately have been thin and weedy and this was a wonderful surprise. And, alas, my last bottle.

From the Rhône Valley. Well, this is the time of the year that I usually start lightening up on the California Pinot and getting back to the Rhône. I was pretty disappointed in the 1989 Jaboulet Aîné Côte Rôtie Les Jumelles, though. It was a pale shadow of what I expected, so much so that I can't say much more than that about it. The 1994 Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape, on the other hand, was a blockbuster. Not nearly "ready," but loads of fun to drink, especially by comparison to the Les Jumelles, with which we had started the same evening. This one's still not knit together, but its parts are enjoyable as they are. The 1995 La Vieux Donjon was also tight, much less approachable than the '94 we had a few weeks ago, but showing promise. Like I said, my specific memories of these Rhônes are already fuzzy. Impressions for future reference.

Oh. The '86 Montelena. Well, that'll have to wait, too. It's way past my bedtime.