Awesome info!

Danothemano said:

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Awesome info!

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If you plan on hiring a driver, most of them can plan an itinerary for you, with as little or as much input as you want to offer.

I have 6 being delivered tomorrow.

WestUAg said:

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Yes this was my 2nd time. Really cool weekend, lots of good street food and live marching bands in the streets made up of middle aged French people. Pretty cool.

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yeah, i know a few people who were there. I definitely want to go sometime.

Lambrusco is a very underrated wine. such great value for delicious wines (usually)

Danothemano said:

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I'm guessing the average age in this forum is mid 50's.

Where did y'all learn so much about wine and all these different places and makers.

I'm 38 and just have my CL and Illahe memberships.

Trips to Napa a good way to find things?

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I'm a little late to respond to this but wanted to add on to the discussion.

I wouldn't automatically say "hey this person is into wine and wants to learn more. They need to spend $$$ to go straight to Napa to learn more." That's a quick semi-solution but it's not the only one. I say semi, because you're pigeon holing your experience and point of view if you just go hit up a few Napa houses in my opinion.

What kind of wine are you mainly into? What's your favorite domestic wine? Or imported? Where do you currently live? And when you say you want to learn more about wine and producers, do you mainly want to explore and expand your cellar? Or do you mainly want more cursory knowledge, maybe not just building more of a cellar?

I'm guessing you may be able to join a tasting group that meets up to be able to sample a heavy variety of wines right now from where you live without having to travel. This might help you try stuff that you wouldn't normally gravitate towards.

When I lived in Texas, I loved the winemaker dinners at various restaurants. That's a nice route to get a little of the wine travel experience without actually traveling. That being said you can definitely learn a lot quickly when you visit a wine growing region like Napa.

I would not automatically go to Napa though, unless you're only interested in Napa wines. I am admittedly biased, but Sonoma county is a great visit. There is now also a direct flight from DFW to STS.

Outside of travel and tastings or dinners, you could really up your general wine knowledge a lot very quickly with a class or 2. I have the WSET II and all the materials on hand for reference. It's enough to really get a lay of the land so to speak in the wine world. Can delve deeper with WSET or on your own if getting more invested or interested in particular wines and regions. I plan to get the III at some point, but I am a similar age to you and have 3 young ones at the moment, so my energy and time for extra curriculars is limited.

Honestly I seem to like stuff from Paso more. I'm not terribly picky though. My wife though is almost to the point where she is exclusively drinking bubbles of some kind.

It would be hard for us to join a tasting group with kids, life, and we live outside of Victoria.

If there's anything you want to know about Paso, ask. I've been six times in the past seven years, and would need more fingers and toes than I have to list off the places I've been.

The biggest problem with Paso is getting there. I think Dallas has the only direct flights to San Luis Obispo, which is 45 minutes away. Otherwise, you have to fly to San Jose or Burbank and it's a 2.5-3 hour drive.

You can also fly dfw to Santa Barbara which is my favorite airport with the easiest rental car setup ever. Last time I was there I ended up getting upgraded to an AMG Mercedes which made the drive through the mountains quite enjoyable.

I wouldn't mind the drive, I've stayed n Salinas and Monterey before and that a nice drive.

I am early 30s and I am in a similar position to you.

I have been following this thread for the last 2-3 years pretty heavily. I also follow reddit's wine subreddit. Texags leans in hard to Napa / California in general whereas reddit is a lot more heavy handed on old world stuff, predominately France.

On youtube - I have watched everything that V is for vino put out (sorta dorky guy in his mid 30s but has really good content), Konstantin Baum (german, wine expert that is probably early 40s), and Wine for Normal People (30-40s guys that are a bit quirky too) that talk about all price points in wine. There are others, but these are the three that I watch pretty consistently.

I really enjoyed Kermit Lynch's book Tales from Wine Trail (or something like that) - he basically talks about traveling through France in the 70-80s and all the small town encounters - it's food, wine, history, and travel all wrapped together with interesting characters. You learn about producers and regions in his book, it makes you want to go out and source a bottle to drink along side the book as you read about what he's describing. I certainly went and bout a Domaine Tempier bandol rose and rouge after the chapter that describes all of that.

I find that as I shop for wine online that I will come across something, when I buy it, I will usually revisit the youtube content or book that talks about it so that when I taste the wine, I can associate knowledge with it.

I really also enjoyed subscribing to SomMailer (french wine club that buys smaller producer stuff). They would create a shipment of some whites and reds from all the major regions in France and some of the more obscure ones. This opened my eyes to Loire valley, Chablis, wine from Corse, Pinot's from Alsace, and finding value in Bordeaux. I am not a member any more but this was really really good for learning different things and then leading you down different areas to explore. They also have labels on the back of their wine that tell you a couple of food pairings with the wine, which I liked.

After a while, you start to figure out what you like and it's less overwhelming. Tasting notes are still BS though

I have Napa/Sonoma on my 2026 travel list and Bordeaux on 2028 list.

Danothemano said:

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I wouldn't mind the drive, I've stayed n Salinas and Monterey before and that a nice drive.

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If you go from Monterey to Cambria down US 1, it's a very pretty drive, assuming that highway is open. The 101 once you get about 45 minutes south of San Jose is less pretty, unless you like looking at miles of farmland.

cecil77 said:

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Great BD celebration last week with family and friends. It was a big one, 1954 birth year. What's amazing is that any of these really old wines are still drinkable, much less good. And, like women, they can be very attractive at any age, but very different in the expression of that attractiveness.



Both 1955s drank well, the Cos a little better on the palate and the Pape on the nose. The Pape was relabeled at the Chateau. Amazingly all had discernable tannin. The 82 y'Quem was perfect. I made old fashioned pound cake into brownie sized squares and they paired wonderfully with the Sauternes.



The 66 Beychevelle was the only one that was undrinkable. The 70 Cos was very good on the first pour. The 70 Ducru struggled for a while, but with an hour of air was really good. The 71 BV GL PR was much better than I would have expected, still had a touch of fruit. All of these had discernable tannin left, although very well integrated.



These "newer" wines all drank well. The Montrose took awhile but came around. The 82 Gauzin was one of the best of the night. Sadly the 54 y'Quem wasn't very good, at least not as a Sauternes. Sugar was overwhelmed by "aged" flavors. Once I readjusted expectations it was enjoyable.


Both Spanish wines showed well. the 64 Barolo was good at first, but fell apart after a half hour or so. The 70 Rioja was recently released with "45 years of bottle aging" which I read as "look what we found in the cellar we'd forgotten about". It was also good on first pour but dissipated with time.



This was the star of the show. vintage 1970 but not disgorged until 4/15/2024 ( you read that right). Still fresh and very fine bubbles. Toasted almonds that morphed into your grandmother's Christmas butterscotch candy. Just very, very enjoyable.

Thanks to aggiejumper for helping me procure most of these and Dan Gatlin for providing some.

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Awesome stuff! Was this bought originally and held or purchased somewhat recently? I'm always hesitant to buy stuff older than about '99

None purchased originally. I've had a very good experience buying wine back to 1980, with no failures I can recall. Older than that is dicey, but by far most have been what's expected.

cecil77 said:

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Both Spanish wines showed well. the 64 Barolo was good at first, but fell apart after a half hour or so. The 70 Rioja was recently released with "45 years of bottle aging" which I read as "look what we found in the cellar we'd forgotten about". It was also good on first pour but dissipated with time.

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Great post! This little typo had me doing a couple of double takes.

Oops.

Eyetalians, Spaniards, what's the differ?

So this happened tonight. Wow!

That deserves a Solari emoji!

You back from your trip?

Yes, trip was great. And this bottle of wine was probably the best white wine I have ever had in my life. Epic

WestUAg said:

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Yes, trip was great. And this bottle of wine was probably the best white wine I have ever had in my life. Epic

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For the price I'd hope so!

I opened that 82 Las Cases for my 68th two years ago, along w/ an 85 Mouton. Yeah, the evening didn't suck!

Old BDX is just a joy.

752bro4 said:

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Last Bottle Marathon just started. Link for referral if anyone has not signed up for this site yet. I'm already in on the 2016 Hamel Isthmus Magnum.

https://www.lastbottlewines.com/invite/0fef53ddfc7fa9b5c2d3.html

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The Marathon is so addictive.

I got some good wines from Spain ... a 2018 Terroir Al Limit Terra de Cuques from Priorat (probably should have bought a couple more bottles) and three bottles of 2015 Bodegas Agronavarra Pleno Gran Reserva, which I've had before and enjoyed.

Also a Petroni cab from Sonoma, two-thirds off.

Being so close to Christmas limited my splurging.

I missed out on some champagnes because my payment wasn't saved

752bro4 said:

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Last Bottle Marathon just started. Link for referral if anyone has not signed up for this site yet. I'm already in on the 2016 Hamel Isthmus Magnum.

https://www.lastbottlewines.com/invite/0fef53ddfc7fa9b5c2d3.html

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Thanks for the link, never used them before. Now to read up on how this works and try to guess on a few good ones. I am not very knowledgeable on wines of the world.