cecil77 said:

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Very cool!

What part of the country? I told Realm to ship Dec 3.

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Well this is my order from May when I went. I will get my allocation shipment next week.

First three shipments in (Benediction, La Pelle, Shibumi Knoll). 13 to go....

Austintm said:

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First three shipments in (Benediction, La Pelle, Shibumi Knoll). 13 to go....

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16? Holey carp!! I'm in 6 and got in trouble for joining the most recent one.

My dad has used Houston Wine Cellar for years. http://www.houstonwinecellar.com/

His collection is shrinking and mine is growing so I took over payment of his locker this year. If you want to rub elbows with some guys with some of the most impressive collections in Houston you just show up on Saturday morning when they are all pulling/storing.

Austintm said:

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First three shipments in (Benediction, La Pelle, Shibumi Knoll). 13 to go....

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Goals

I think we're at 7:
O'Brien (preparing shipment)
EnGarde (received last Friday)
St. Francis
Schramsberg (got the spring shipment earlier this month, think we got the fall one too, wife drinks bubbles like it' water, so never sure what's what)
Kamen ("by Thanksgiving")
Repris
Modus Operandi (shipped yesterday)

On the way next week: Pott, Futo, Pahlmeyer.

I want to be BFFs with your wife.

I asked for all mine after 11/1. Just don't trust our weather! Or the weather between here and there...

Same here, but a couple shipped anyway because of the longer cool spell. Benovia shipped this week (I had a coupon from them for free overnight shipping), and Jacob Toft and Burgess will ship next week.

I always have ours held at the UPS or FedEx place and go pick them up. That way they don't sit out on the front porch in the heat.

Tonight's wine.

MooreTrucker said:

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I always have ours held at the UPS or FedEx place and go pick them up. That way they don't sit out on the front porch in the heat.

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Here in Boerne, Walgreens (of all places) is a FX drop point. Makes it very convenient.

cecil77 said:

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MooreTrucker said:

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I always have ours held at the UPS or FedEx place and go pick them up. That way they don't sit out on the front porch in the heat.

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Here in Boerne, Walgreens (of all places) is a FX drop point. Makes it very convenient.

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Same here, but it's a relatively new development.

I have wine delivered to my wife's office which is close to our house and she always has people there to sing/receive. Only had minimal issues with "shrink" from office personnel.

Has anyone tried either of the Caterwaul cabs from Thomas Rivers Brown? I am tempted to try the $50 pnp, but the folks on cellar tracker don't seem overly excited about it. Curious what you guys think.

Pott's single vineyard release starts next week. That's usually my biggest purchase of the year as far as quantity goes.

Burgess ships this week and Paix Sur Terre gets here Friday. Time to start moving stuff to the "drink within the next year" fridge.

So today was a pretty busy day at work, I was all over the place. And I got the Pott email, meant to forward it to my wife and just said "Speaking of wine budgets...." as my wife and I are in the process of setting what our yearly budget should be. But I actually just replied to the email....

Claire replied with "Blow it all Matt, you're going to win that $1.6 billion tonight anyway!!"

Haha. Awesome. Guess I have to buy my allocation now....

Ha. Oops.

I emailed her back after noticing the pictures at the bottom. One was captioned "at the new winery." I had forgotten that Quixote was sold. Claire said they are now at the new Blackbird winery in south Napa. It's not as glamorous she said, but Aaron loves the shiny new equipment. I may have to check it out in a few weeks when I go out there.

Well sheeeeeeit. I didn't get the Pott email. My wine budget is long gone, so that is probably for the best. Because I definitely would have bought some.

$300 Jack-O-Lantern?!

Headed out to Santa Barbara later this week. Any wineries, tasting rooms or restaurants we can't miss visiting?

Likely visiting Foxen, Au Bon Climat and Jamie Sloan. Going with some friends that have a few other places in mind.

In SB proper there are a ton of generally blah winery tasting rooms. Nothing wrong with them but probably not anything that'll blow your socks off. Concentrated in the Funk Zone, there's also another clustering downtown. Most of "the good stuff" will involve a trip out of town to the wineries. One exception would be trying to schedule a tasting at the Sanguis warehouse in SB.

There's a very well stocked tasting room at the SB Public Market (a big food court downtown) that is worth a stop, as is the beer garden at the other end of the building.

Les Marchands is another good spot to sample different wines though the list is more European than local.

Loquita is one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. I'd call it a must for dinner. Plenty of other good options as well. The Lark gets rave reviews but I've not been blown away.

Where are you staying?

We're staying at the Hotel Indigo.

We plan to do one day in town and one day north of town in the wine region. The Public Market and Loquita are on my list but I have to convince the other couple we're going with to be brave in their eating choices.

Thanks for the suggestions

Go to Sanguis. It isn't in the prettiest part of Santa Barbara, but the wines are exquisite. They don't charge for a tasting, so be sure to purchase a bottle or two.

If your going to venture out of Santa Barbara proper to Los Olivos and into Rhne's I'm partial to Stolpman and Beckmen. If your looking for Pinot I really liked Melville. Could also do the wine ghetto in Lompoc and hit up a few at once , namely Fiddlehead and Arcadian.

More like $400... prices went up plus shipping and tax.

Second Stolpman. There's a new Melville tasting room basically across the street from Indigo now so that's an "in town" option too.

Sanguis was a good visit. We also enjoyed Whitcraft, on recommendation from the guy at Sanguis. Check it out if you're into Pinot Noir & Syrah.

The Pott release started yesterday. I got a couple of each wine, except Turf War which was only a 12 case production. I just got one of those. Hopefully there won't be any more releases for a while because I am too full on wine and this stuff ain't doing my checkbook any favors!

cecil77 said:

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Interesting read

The hidden figures behind the Judgment of Paris

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That's great. First read about this in the Mondavi book. That's interesting that a French judge asked for her ballot back. They could have been lauded as truly impartial, world class critics. Turns out their palates were world class, but couldn't overcome the French bias in their hearts.