BigAg95 said:

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I received a corked bottle from LastBottle. Anyone have any experience with their customer service team in situations like this?

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It took a couple days, but they responded and offered me a credit. Crisis averted! Though about using it to get the 2015 Mondavi Oakville cab today, but then I remembered the plight of the poor Macdonald clan over the To Kalon branding issue.

What was corked?

It was one of their own bottlings, 2014 Sleeper Napa cab.

BigAg95 said:

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BigAg95 said:

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I received a corked bottle from LastBottle. Anyone have any experience with their customer service team in situations like this?

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It took a couple days, but they responded and offered me a credit. Crisis averted! Though about using it to get the 2015 Mondavi Oakville cab today, but then I remembered the plight of the poor Macdonald clan over the To Kalon branding issue.

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You aren't missing much. The Mondavi cabs aren't that great. I think the MacDonald grapes are in the To Kalon reserve ($300). We went there for purely a scientific experiment before tasting at MacDonald. We tried the TK reserve and it wasn't memorable. It's a shame what they do with those grapes!!!

FYI, that 08 Salon package sold.

Kinda crazy that Constellation paid all that money for the dirt and then seem to be actively trying to wreck their reputation. I buy Detert and will buy MacDonald if I ever get the chance. I also buy some Beckstoffer To Kalon. Can't see dropping any money on them.

Can anyone school me on what temps could damage wine? Opened a bottle for the first time since my wine fridge stopped working. I noticed it wasn't cooling anymore and the temp gauge read 79 when I turned it off. The bottle I opened tastes off. Not terrible, but maybe sweeter than how I remember. Is it cooked? I have some really nice wine in it so hopefully not.

Also, would cabs hold up differently than a Pinot noir?

I think 79 would be fine. It's temp fluctuations that have a greater effect. And higher heat, being in your trunk when it's 80+ outside, etc.

You'd probably want to cool it before serving, though.

htxag09 said:

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I think 79 would be fine. It's temp fluctuations that have a greater effect. And higher heat, being in your trunk when it's 80+ outside, etc.

You'd probably want to cool it before serving, though.

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I had taken a swig of some week old wine just to see how bad it was before I opened the bottle so I'm thinking my taste buds were just thrown off.

And now for something completely different. It's finally not ****ing hot, and time to open a big tannic red.

I'll be at the event via Amizetta as well. Looks like a good tasting.

Incredibly last minute, but our childcare fell through for the Realm tasting in Houston so we won't be able to make it. Anyone looking for two tickets? They won't let us apply the value to a wine purchase so I'd like to see someone use them.

Rikhaze06 @ gmail

Dude. That sucks. My neighbors would enjoy the event but they aren't $175/btl drinkers.

It does suck. Pretty bummed about it and their decision to make it a nonrefund event while releasing tickets 6 months in advance.

Anyway, they're going to go unused so I would like someone to have them. If your neighbors are interested please shoot me an email.

RikHaze said:

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It does suck. Pretty bummed about it and their decision to make it a nonrefund event while releasing tickets 6 months in advance.

Anyway, they're going to go unused so I would like someone to have them. If your neighbors are interested please shoot me an email.

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I am in agreement here with you, at least let the value be used towards wine, especially since the tickets were $175 a piece! I am sorry you can't make it.

Welp I already lined up our baby sitter for Wednesday for the Dallas event and looking forward to it. Hopefully its a good one.

Sucks..... But not really sure you can blame Realm here. I mean they've been sold out for months, it'd suck for them if all of a sudden 20+, hell even 10+, tickets were returned last minute. They have little chance of selling them and that's a decent amount of money they were accounting for now gone.

I do think the offer of applying it to a wine purchase was a good compromise, or maybe next time have a wait list and the tickets just go to the next person. But even that isn't guaranteed, those people won't have arrangements made either....

My wife had a last minute work trip to Prague pop up. I debated trying to sell them, but wanted to still go and was able to find a buddy who enjoys wine to go with. We'll be bacheloring it up at a fancy wine event tonight!

I see their side for sure. I reached out last week to inform them of the pickle. I figured that a week in advance wasn't springing it on them and I'd be more than willing to keep the money with them just in the form me getting some bottles I exchange.

We'd be coming in from Austin, so it's not as simple as having a sitter for a few hours. Moral of the story: kids......

I received no notices of the event after buying my tickets until last night.

If they really won't offer some partial credit toward purchase, I'll no longer be a buyer. There's plenty of good wine.

Anybody want an almost new Coravin, cheap?

Used it a few times and the cartridge cost was going to eat me up, so went a different route.

40lb bottle, regulator and sparging gun is about $350. (same as some Coravin packages)

40lb Argon is $15. Equivalent in Coravin cartridges is over $2,500.

A few quick thoughts on the Realm tasting.

- first, I looked for Cecil all night, was bummed to not see him. Someday, Cecil...someday.
- It was good seeing htxag09 and hanging out for a few
- Thanks to RikHaze for taking care of my buddy, who had a great time.

As for the wines:

- Mostly 2017s were poured. My favorites were the Houyi (Pritchard Hill) and To Kalon. The Bard showed well, also. They have a new bottling, Bourne, that it looks like they bought from Kata. It was 90% cab and 10% petit sirah. I don't know if I liked it or enjoyed the different grape profile but it was a refreshing change of pace among a mostly all-cab lineup.
- I thought the Absurd was a bit overextracted and too young.
- I dumped a lot of wine into my wife's glass. Poor thing. She's gotta be hungover today.
- We went back to the house and opened a 2011 Ch Giraud so my buddies could taste their first Sauternes.
- Wine if the night just happened to be from a random guy who brought some of his own. So to Harold...thanks for the 1996 Krug champagne!!!! Holy cow.

I love Sauternes served at the end of a nice meal. Still have not purchased a bottle of d'Yquem yet, but it is on the list.

How cheap we talking?

752bro4 said:

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How cheap we talking?

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I don't know. $249 on cyber Monday last year. No cartridges. Used maybe a dozen times. Have the original box.

Maybe an interesting bottle of wine?

What do you think?

Cecil

Let me see what's in the fridge and not off site. I probably don't have anything in the range you'd want price wise that I am willing to give up, but could probably find 2 in that half that price range? Off the top of my head we have a lot of Modus Operandi Vicarious and quite a bit of O'Brien Romance (Merlot Blend), O'Brien Seduction (Bordeaux Blend), St. Francis Rockpile Cab.

Also happy to just do paypal/venmo/check/money order/traveler's cheque/bitcoin/or any other form of currency you can think of.

Whatever, really. And, LOL, I was thinking maybe seventy five bucks, so it looks like that O'brien Romance might work?

email sent

Man, Downstream sure is proud of their wine! ~$200/bottle for a Paso zin blend, with a $1G minimum purchase?

Is anyone pulling the trigger?

Ha just got my "allocation" too - $995 boxed set of 3 bottles and one mag. Wondering the same thing.

Got the same email from Downstream. I will be passing. Looks like a lot of others are passing as well. I think the initial wave of offerings went out weeks ago. I suspect we're the 2nd (or 3rd) wave of offerings after others passed.

Wow $200 for a Zin blend from Paso? Can't see how they can sustain that price over time

The Kincade Fire is now at 21,900 acres and a 5% containment. The mandatory evacuation area has reached the entrance of Jordan and Coppola.

Hoping the fire doesn't jump too many more roads and head further into Alexander Valley.

ILikeTacos said:

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The Kincade Fire is now at 21,900 acres and a 5% containment. The mandatory evacuation area has reached the entrance of Jordan and Coppola.

Hoping the fire doesn't jump too many more roads and head further into Alexander Valley.

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We visited both in August...

Yea it's pretty smokey all throughout the area. Smoke is worse the farther north you head towards Healdsburg and Geyserville.

Had power outages Wednesday night. Didn't help much obviously. Supposed to get more power outages in the region overnight Saturday.

It's gonna get real windy tomorrow night and stay windy on Sunday. Hoping and praying for the best.

(Didn't mean to use the thumbs up).