Are you opening anything good this weekend?

[Roy Hersh]

Port or otherwise (yes, we'll make an exception here) ... what is in your queue for the weekend?

I started off with a 1999 Beyerskloof Pinotage last night and am heading to the cellar to prepare the rest of the weekend and pull some that I know my wife loves.

What about you?

[Otto Nieminen]

Oh yes! I'll be opening up a Q. do Vesuvio 1994 tomorrow (decanting tips gratefully accepted! I was thinking of opening at 10am since we'll start imbibing (slowly) at 17:00? Is 7 hours enough?). Also a Pierre Peters Bl de Bl Champagne NV plus a couple nice, under the radar wines: Ch. des Erles Fitou 2002 (J & F Lurton) and Jeruzalem Ormož Terase 2005 (Slovenia; Sauv Bl based blend) which is a delight: mineral and fresh yet abundantly fruity. A nice weekend indeed! :)

p.s. How do you like Kanonkop's Pinotage? I haven't tasted many good examples of the grape, but Kanonkop seems excellent.

[Al B.]

I opened a bottle of Chateau Maucaillou (I think that's how its spelt, I'll check and edit later) 1995 on Friday. It was delicious. There's also a bottle of Berry's Selection Chilean Cabernet 1999 that was opened this evening and is superb. The port that is being drunk is from a bottle of Taylor's 1980 and is still very enjoyable after having been opened on Wednesday. I have a Warre's 1970 next in the port queue.

Otto - 7 hours to start drinking the 1994 Vesuvio will be plenty of time, but I really enjoy this wine even the next day or the day after.

Alex

[Frederick Blais]

Can it be Maucaillou Alex?

Well I had a great week-end so far. Last night with a few friend I got

Haut-Brion 1993 -- amazing purity but lacking depth
Mission Haut-Brion 1997 -- good concentration and flavours, short finale
Henri-Germain Meursault village 2004 -- look for that producer, amazing white
Castel Giocondo Brunello Reserva 2000 -- overripe, soft tannins, poor example of classic style that this wine used to be
Louis Latour Corton Charlemagne 1999 -- faulty bottle that was stinky like an old jock strap.
Pio Cesare barolo reserva 1982 : pass its prime, flavours ok but nothing intense. Interesting for curiosity.
CHateau Montrose 2003 : Impressive, deep, nice fruit, oaky but not too much, should be nice in a few years.
Graham's 1983 : very nice port, intense complex and balanced. tannins are integrated, could age more depending on the flavours you prefer.

More to come ....

[Derek T.]

Not this weekend, but I will be opening a Taylors Vargellas 1965 for my birthday on Wednesday 8)

Derek

[Ronald Wortel]

We're taking it easy this weekend after celebrating LadyR's birthday last week with a Graham's 1977 (I'll post LadyR's notes in a seperate thread) and a very nice dinner. This weekend we're sampling some German wines we received through a friend. Yesterday a very nice Spätburgunder from Krüger-Rumpf (Nahe). (This was actually one of the first spätburgunders I liked!)

[Andy Velebil]

Yesterday, I headed off to the south OC (orange County) to an offline of wines from Thomas R. Brown (diclaimer my brother works with him at Outpost). Here is what I had last night. This list does not include about 6-8 other wines that I sampled and took no notes on. (* means I really really liked it)

Schrader:
2004 Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

MMIV "Old Sparky" Cabernet Sauvignon*

2004 Beckstoffer Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Maybach:
2004 Materium

River's - Marie:
2005 Occidental Ride Vineyard Pinot Noir

2004 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir*

2003 Sonoma Coast Summa Old Vines Pinot Noir

2005 Summa Old Vines Pinot Noir* (only 54 bottles produced and not for sale)

Outpost:
2004 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon*

2004 Howell Mountain Grenache

2005 Howell Mountain Grenache Barrel Sample*

1998 Howell Mountain Zinfandel* (their first Zin)

2003 Howell Mountain Zinfandel

2004 Howell Mountain Zinfandel

2005 Howell Mountain Zinfandel*

2004 Howell Mountain Petite Sirah "The Other"

A few others:
1998 Chateau Fortia Chateauneuf du Pape

1998 La Crau De Ma Mere Chateauneuf du Pape

2003 McPride Myers Grenache

2003 Robert Foley Claret (way way over oaked, the only one that night I refused to drink or sample again)

2005 Alcina Cellars Syrah Las Madres Vineyard

PORTS:
1986 Niepoort Colheita (B. 1996) (disclaimer I brought this, and it is drinking great...Long story, but I almost didn't get a glass it went so fast)

1997 Quinta do Vesuvio VP: To bad this was only decanted about 1 hours prior...however, because it was in the decanter almost no one drank it (cause they didn't know what it was)...so Frank T. and I pretty much drank the whole thing. It was just starting to show it self by the end....a very nice VP

1997 Niepoort VP (1/2 bottle): Since we ran out of Port (had I known only one other person was bringing a bottle of Port, I would have brought more..lesson for next time) I convinced our host, FMIII, to open this from his cellar...sadly it was horribly corked

1972 Bodegas Toro Aldala Gran Reserva PX: Ahh, a little motor oil to finish things off :)

What a great time last night

[Scott Anaya]

Tonite is dinner at a friends. I offered to bring desert and aim to recreate a very yummy pairing I had at a restauarant recently, peanut butter ice cream accompanied by a Alvear Pedro Ximenez Solera--they called it PB&J (peanut butter and jelly) and it was a great combination. I have a 1927 PX ready for this one. I am a bit worried this PX will not have any jammy fruit to contrast with the peanutbutter, but I am looking forward to drinking this too much not to do it.

[Paulo Barbosa]

Last night for my wife's 35th Birthday Celebration we opened a magnum of the Taylor 1970.

What a fenomenal vintage port.

In the larger format the wine almost tasted younger that the 750ml bottles I have had in the past.

Top 3 of all time in my book.

Cheers

Paulo

[Luc Gauthier]

Port or otherwise (yes, we'll make an exception here) ... what is in your queue for the weekend?

I started off with a 1999 Beyerskloof Pinotage last night and am heading to the cellar to prepare the rest of the weekend and pull some that I know my wife loves.

What about you?

My better half could find out what's in my queue this week-end

A Warres '91 VP and aTaylor '88 Vargellas VP on Easter weekend .

[Jay Powers]

Friday night was a wine tasting that some of us at work have near monthly. This time the theme was "merlot and merlot based wines". The wines were:

2001 Pride Mountain Vineyards, Napa/Sonoma, Mountaintop Merlot

2001 Peby Faugeres, St Emilion

1995 Troplong Mondot, St Emilion

2001 Verite “La Muse”, Sonoma

1998 Leonetti Cellar, Columbia valley, WA, Merlot

2004 Corte Riva Vineyards, Napa Merlot

2000 Chateau Monbousquet, St Emilion

Then we ran out of merlot and the host opened:

2002 Pride Mountain Vineyards, Sonoma, Cabernet Franc

2004 Navarro, Anderson Valley, Mendocino, Gewuerztraminer

2003 Selbach-Oster, Zeltinger Sonnenuhr, Mosel, Riesling Auslese***

Not a bad wine in the lot, although I was most partial to the Troplong, the Pride merlot, and the Peby. A wonderful evening to be sure, with great company!

The only port I had all weekend was a 1966 Colheita, that starts with M (Morieria?)....need to relook at the bottle.

All in all a pretty nice wine weekend!

Jay

[Philip Harvey]

Roy

I am abstaining from all forms of alcoholic beverage for Lent, but have lined up one (or all) of the following to break my fast next Sunday:

Barbeito 1978 Boal or D'oliveiras 1968 Boal (can't decide which) as a sharpener; then

Mount Billy Antiquity Shiraz 2001 (if we have beef); or

La Rioja Alta 904 Gran Reserva 1995 (if it's lamb); and finally

Dow 1980 (because it's just so darned good).
.

It could be a late start next Monday!

[Julian D. A. Wiseman]

Another fan of 1980: hurray!