Awesome. I love the JJ Prum I've had.

Good discussion this page.

2014 Petroni sangiovesse. LastBottle.

Objective Aggie said:

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2014 Petroni sangiovesse. LastBottle.

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Nice shot! I'm looking forward to getting my marathon shipment to find out what I bought. I have no idea.

BigAg95 said:

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Objective Aggie said:

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2014 Petroni sangiovesse. LastBottle.

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Nice shot! I'm looking forward to getting my marathon shipment to find out what I bought. I have no idea.

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lol. Between the buying euphoria of a flash sale and LastBottle delayed shipping process you open each box with surprise.

BSD said:

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One of my buddies came over tonight to a bbq we were hosting and it happened to be his birthday. Knowing that he liked Schrader from a bottle we shared with him in Bonaire last summer, I opened this one. He was very pleased.

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Very nice!

Maybach release is today. The Materium Cabernet is consistently my favorite Napa cab (up there with Scarecrow but gets the nod at half the price).

BSD said:

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Maybach release is today. The Materium Cabernet is consistently my favorite Napa cab (up there with Scarecrow but gets the nod at half the price).

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19, 20, or 21?

21 release is today

He is also releasing half bottles of Vocabulum, a thorevilos vineyard cab (Abreu). It's hard fruit to get ahold of, so I'm told. I got two and wishlisted another.

Had this a couple of weeks back on NYE and meant to post it. Great Syrah from our recent trip to Santa Barbara.

What's the best way to remove sediment?

I use a funnel & strainer when decanting. You could do this for pouring into glasses too.

Objective Aggie said:

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What's the best way to remove sediment?

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I prefer the traditional way, but use a screen when in a hurry.

Stand the bottle for several hours.

Pour very slowly while looking through the bottom of the neck. Traditionally holding a candle behind it, but if the room's well lit it's not necessary. The sediment will be caught in the curve of the bottle just below the neck (assuming BDX style bottle). Stop pouring before the sediment slides into the neck.

Or, forget to do anything and when your wife wants the last bit of wine you forget and dump it all into her glass. (Pro move - not recommended)

I know some of you are Rivers-Marie buyers. Has anyone tried the 2022 pinots? I got their email offering today and their write-ups make it sound like it is a bad vintage. I'll probably buy my usual 6 pack regardless, but I am curious to hear your thoughts.

I usually just slow pour into a decanter after standing the bottle up for a while. Then pour slow out of the decanter. I have strained with what Cade showed, too. And a few times I used a coffee filter on some really old stuff.

Haven't tried them but they are typically well made wines. I bought the Old Vines, Theriot, and Platt based on a recommendation. And the Sonoma Coast as well.

752bro4 said:

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This and a bottle of Veuve tonight

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I was just gifted a bottle of the 2018 this past weekend. Being from Howell Mountain, my thought is to cellar it for a long while.

Dancing bear one of most underrated bottlings out there. I have a lot of that in my cellar and it's delicious juice.

Sampled a 2018 Dunn recently. Surprisingly good to go, esp for a Dunn.

Likely optical sorting (and perhaps MOX) is allowing for these wines to be ready much earlier.

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Mousse Fils L'or Eugene Brut Rose

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This and the regular L'or Eugene are two of the best QPR's in champagne, IMO.

Storm is good people, enjoyed chatting with them before. Pretty cool they are selling older vintages!

I finally got added to the allocation list for Saxum, after 7 years. It seems like a lot of new folks made the list this year, I suspect they've had a big jump in production volume or something.

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Do you open all your bottles with a feather and tongs too? Sheesh…

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No, no....

Those are reserved for even more pleasant pursuits...

I think the price increases, thinned out some of their longtime buyers which allowed waitlist guys to get on .

Makes sense, the prices are definitely higher than I remember seeing in the past.

The premiumization is steering more towards popularization in terms of what people are spending on for drinks. Saw that trend and term coined just this week in reference to the state of the wine industry after 2023. I think there are a lot of reasons for this, and economic factors certainly play a part.

On the DTC side: I imagine for some people that have acquired a bunch of wines over the years, they've scaled back drinking the past couple of years on consumption rate and realize that they no longer need to bolster their cellar as much. Tighter market, inflation certainly doesn't help. Why build up my 200 bottle cellar to 300 bottles when my grocery bill is $30% higher than it was just a couple of years ago?

Or in the case of Napa, why spend more to keep building my cellar when I can go somewhere else wine-selection wise for less $?

There are a multitude of reasons, but it's safe to say overall demand is down a bit and things are tightening up for the industry right now. 2023 was not a strong wine year.

It's a complex issue. The foot traffic on 290 is drastically reduced of the past years.

I think that "inventory draw down" both in distribution and has you said, personally is certainly a factor, but not the only one. The industry is abuzz about all of it...

No1 one issue why consumers are buying less wine

US alcohol indutry's worst year since 1991

Yea, I forgot to add the part too about Chateau St Michelle and it's terrible news guidance last year to grape suppliers in WA. That state (and the whole industry really, not just US), is overplanted for the global demand levels. More details From Vinepair in talking about the most recent SVB state of the industry report:

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One of the report's key takeaways is that consumer demand for wine continues to dwindle in favor of alternatives like RTDs, spirits, and cannabis. Further, more people are choosing not to drink altogether. In line with this, 2023 will mark the first time in 45 years that the volume of spirits sold will surpass the volume of wine sold. The report goes on to share that the U.S. is not alone in this shift, with other traditional wine-drinking countries including Germany, France, and Italy also seeing a decrease in consumption.

Another major point: there is currently an oversupply of planted vineyards in the U.S. compared to the present sales volumes. This could create conditions for overproduction, leading to inventory excess, discounting, and price reductions. This, too, is also a global trend, with France notably spending 200 million euros in 2023 to fund the destruction of the nation's surplus wine production. With a decrease in bulk wine consumption, the industry will need to correct itself to avoid the issues of oversupply.

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When joining clubs and building up my cellar,I bought mostly wines I consider high QPR, almost all in the $40-100 range. Over the past 2-3 years, I think almost all of those have crept near or over the $100 point, and I've stopped buying most of them. I've dropped Sanguis, Realm, and Myriad, and have not really replaced them with anything. The only allocations I still buy every year are Justin, Ultramarine, Rivers Marie, William & Mary, Turley, and Pott's Napa cab.

Piper and MacDonald for me. And not surprisingly both are more traditional cabernets and both have held their line on price.