752bro4 said:

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Lineup for tonight, I think. 3 other couples are joining us for steak night at our house.

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Looks great. Except the Silver Oak.

Austintm said:

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752bro4 said:

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Lineup for tonight, I think. 3 other couples are joining us for steak night at our house.

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Looks great. Except the Silver Oak.

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What's wrong with Silver Oak?

I was able to try a glass of this today. Might be one of the best white wines I've ever had.

What vintage?

2017.

MooreTrucker said:

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Austintm said:

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752bro4 said:

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Lineup for tonight, I think. 3 other couples are joining us for steak night at our house.

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Looks great. Except the Silver Oak.

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What's wrong with Silver Oak?

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There's nothing wrong with any wine if you like it. Silver Oak has done a great job making sure their wines get on restaurant lists. It's now overproduced, and overworked in the barrel(not Caymus-level overworked, but overdone nonetheless. At least they actually age it, unlike Caymus which is now releasing vintages a year after harvest)

How was the Round Pond? I think I could make out 2016. I have a bottle of that so just curious what you think of it.

Actually headed there in 2 months.

No picture, but our Valentine's wine was a Soter Brut Rose from Oregon. Kind of wish I'd served that in something other than a champaign flute to let the fruit shine a little more. Had with takeout Thai food because that's about as ambitious as two parents of a 10 month old get. But sparkling wine and Thai food is a great pairing.

Round Pond was spectacular- I only had a small glass of it though. It went quickly. Paired well with the dry aged tenderloin. We decanted it for about an hour beforehand.

The Deranged was also great, but not nearly the hit that Round Pond was. We never got to the Silver Oak, or didn't really need it after cocktail hour and the first two bottles.

The show stopper was the Schramsberg. We meant to open it for everyone, but my in-laws and I decided it was too good to share.

We thought about another bottle for the crowd, but my wife is 20 weeks pregnant and it felt like we were rubbing it in. That said, she has decided that'll be her celebratory bottle when Junior pops out.

I ask because some friends gave me a bottle for my birthday and I know it was fairly expensive, yet to us it was just slightly above average. Tasty but not, IMO, $100+ tasty.

MooreTrucker said:

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I ask because some friends gave me a bottle for my birthday and I know it was fairly expensive, yet to us it was just slightly above average. Tasty but not, IMO, $100+ tasty.

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Price depends on which one. The Alexander Valley SO runs about $75 retail, and the Napa Valley SO runs $125-ish. There's nothing "wrong" with SO, it just isn't everyone's cup of wine. They age it in American (Missouri) oak, which imparts a different flavor profile than French oak and has softer tannins, and they produce the wine to be pop and pour ready. The wine they are making now (unlike the older vintages of SO) isn't really made for extended aging.

I've quit drinking sparking wine out of flutes. You get better aromatics out of a regular glass, and there are enough imperfections in a standard glass to provide nucleation sites for the bubbles.

These we're the wines from the Saturday tasting. They were all very good, but for very different reasons. The best part was nothing was over $87.

HTownAg98 said:

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I've quit drinking sparking wine out of flutes. You get better aromatics out of a regular glass, and there are enough imperfections in a standard glass to provide nucleation sites for the bubbles.

These we're the wines from the Saturday tasting. They were all very good, but for very different reasons. The best part was nothing was over $87.

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Agree. We use Zalto and Gabriel Glas universal glasses now for everything, including champagne
I am looking at the Zalto champagne glasses. Might order a pair to see. Kind of in between a flute and a universal: https://www.wineenthusiast.com/zalto-denkart-champagne-glass

I'll be attending this with Dan and Spencer Gatlin.

If anyone is going, it would be fun to say howdy...

Great Wines of Italy USA 2020 - Dallas Grand Tasting

Rivers Marie allocated me a 3 pack of each chardonnay, and I decided to grab one and got an error message that the minimum order is 4 bottles... guess I won't be buying anything from them.

We had the pleasure of meeting Cecil at Inwood last week, tasted some good wines and learned a little about Texas wine making (and wine making in general). Great experience and we look forward to diving a little deeper on our next trip to Fredericksburg.

To continue the fun into tonight, we opened a bottle of 2009 Saddleback Cellars (Nils Venge) cabernet. Really good wine. Wish I could enjoy that kind of quality every night.

Did he give you some of the "secret stash"? Cuz I got some of the "secret stash"....

Why yes, yes he did. Not enough however, as Dan was out of town and some of it was locked up.

And once again I am astounded by the consistency with which good Ags out kick the coverage in their choice of brides!

I guess that would make me the Ray Guy of marriage.

mek94 said:

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I guess that would make me the Ray Guy of marriage.

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Well, I'm at least the Braden Mann...

cecil77 said:

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I'll be attending this with Dan and Spencer Gatlin.

If anyone is going, it would be fun to say howdy...

Great Wines of Italy USA 2020 - Dallas Grand Tasting

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Holy cow, I haven't been on TA in fiveever. #twinning

Cecil, great meeting you last night at the event. As you can tell, I too am one of those dudes who out-kicked his coverage on brides. I'll PM you my contact info and we can meet up when I'm down at the winery for the next board meeting.

Bought a few bottles recently:

2017 Detert cab sauv
2017 Detet cab franc
2017 Scarecrow
2017 Pott Incubo cab sauv
2017 Pott Space and Time cab franc
2016 Pott Infinite Probability Drive cab sauv
2013 Pott Colheita
2017 Pott 20M3 viognier
2018 Rivers Marie B. Theriot chard
2018 Rivers Marie Platt chard
2012 Cristal
2002 Dom Perignon
1996 Dom Perignon

I hope I'm done for this spring.

BSD said:

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Bought a few bottles recently:

2017 Detert cab sauv
2017 Detet cab franc
2017 Scarecrow
2017 Pott Incubo cab sauv
2017 Pott Space and Time cab franc
2016 Pott Infinite Probability Drive cab sauv
2013 Pott Colheita
2017 Pott 20M3 viognier
2018 Rivers Marie B. Theriot chard
2018 Rivers Marie Platt chard
2012 Cristal
2002 Dom Perignon
1996 Dom Perignon

I hope I'm done for this spring.

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Nice lineup

Bought the Detert cab franc as well. Unfortunately wasn't offered the cab.

Just got an email from Herman Story and am contemplating buying because of the tasting notes alone.

Smoking bales of weed makes for some illustrative writing. Their wines are good too.

HTownAg98 said:

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Smoking bales of weed makes for some illustrative writing. Their wines are good too.

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I've had 1 bottle but it was at least 5 years ago. My recollection is I liked it quite a bit.

And my cellar is predominantly Napa cab/Bordeaux blends. Probably should diversify more.

Hello again all.

As I'm going through the entire thread again and I'm really digging it btw, just was curious what percentage of everyone's purchases were from retail, direct from winery (what kind of lists you're on and have ended), auction etc.

Forgive me if already posted somewhere. Still trying the search functions etc.

For me 70% is just every day drinkers 9-20 bucks at heb, total wine, specs etc

20% from the winery
Only on 2 lists
Roar
Quilceda Creek (just moved from waiting list to being able to purchase)
Every once in a while a buddy will share some of his allocations from various places and I'll get a bottle

10% auction sites

Again. Forgive me if these topics have been discussed on this thread.
Hope to learn more from y'all and discuss more regularly especially after I move from CS to Houston area in a couple weeks.

Blessings

Don't apologize, it's an interesting topic and the answers are never constant for any one person. Interested to see people's answers!

I don't have much to offer since the pattern will be much different with my job in the industry. I'll use MSRP to take some of that out. But I would guess:

• 65% "Daily", MSRP <$20
• 20% Nice, MSRP $21-$30
• 10% Nicer $31-$50
• 5% Splurge, MSRP >$51

No longer on any clubs but member of a couple of winery "allocation" lists, where you buy if you want. I would say the pure "retail" is much lower than it used to be as well.

Great question

40% retail

• 6 pack mixers from HEB or Kroger for weeknight drinking ($10-$15 spanish reds, $12-$18 CdR's etc)
• random or selected pulls from liquor stores
• deals advertised at Houston Wine Merchant

40% from the winery

• Pisoni Estate
• Lucia
• Ridge
• Stolpman
• Andrew Murray
• Melville

10% Auction or e-mail specials- Vivino, Wine Access etc;
5% Gifts

• I'm very blessed that my dad has gifted me numerous special occasion wines
• 1984 (birthyear)- Margaux, Dunn, Lafite, Palmer etc
• 2007 (anniversary)- Dom

Number is kind of hard to figure. At any given time my percentage on-hand from the winery is probably even higher than that but my percentage of wine consumed is also higher than 40% (it gets drunk quickly )

Pretty much all of our wine comes direct from the winery, either wine clubs or purchased on-site. Our only wine shop closed, and I don't like shopping for wine at Spec's.

That's a shame, I love good boutique wine stores.

feels like treasure hunting

Me too, however there aren't many in this state that are worth a darn at a fair price. Lots of them elsewhere but our laws inhibit boutique shops from really getting super rare or unique stuff.

I know. We were friends with the owners, yet we hardly ever see them anymore. It hurt my heart to lose that store and now it's Spec's and grocery stores. And Republic controls it all. Even award-winning local wineries are pushed out of shelf space because Republic says so.