As I spent 2009 combing the Napa Valley for great wines (the one definite perk of living here and being in the wine business), I decided to pay special attention to the Cabernets that were priced at $50 or less, hoping to one day compile a list of favorites. In order to confirm their merit, I plan to eventually put all of these wines into blind tastings alongside a few of their $100 counterparts, just to see how they fare against the big boys (I suspect that many of these lesser-priced wines will easily rise to the top). But [... read more ...]
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The Culinary Timeline is a side-project that I've been working on since October. I'm hoping to have most of it complete by the end of January, with any luck. Until then, updates around here will be weekly, rather than twice weekly. Do stay tuned. • • •
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Six wine professionals, including yours truly, blind tasted six Napa Cabernets this week, all from the 2005 vintage, and all hailing from the legendary Oakville appellation. The survey produced some mixed, yet interesting results. The list of wines was as follows: • 2005 Tamber Bey Cabernet Savignon ($65) • 2005 Groth Cabernet Sauvingnon ($58) • 2005 Ghost Block Cabernet Sauvignon ($55) • 2005 Gargiulo “Money Ranch Road” Cabernet Sauvignon ($85) • 2005 Nickel & Nickel “John C. Sullenger” Cabernet Sauvignon ($90)
If times are as difficult as people say, then Turnbull Wine Cellars should be on everyone’s short list of wineries to visit this year. Not only does the winery offer a terrific 2005 Napa Cabernet at just $45 per bottle, but its 2006 Old Bull Red, priced at just $20 per bottle, will prove to be an unbeatable “barbecue” wine this summer. I buy a fair amount of both of these wines annually, since I can always count on Turnbull Cellars for a price-to-value ratio that is almost unmatched anywhere here in the Napa Valley.
I’ve often acknowledged that my blog entries on Thirsty Reader comprise only what I find time to mention, and that they account for only a small portion of my excursions into wine country. I happen to enjoy wine tasting, so I’ll visit dozens of wineries within a month, just for my own education. But even if I had the time and the energy to deliver notes for all of the wines I taste, there would still be hundreds of wines left uncovered. Even the Wine Spectator, which rates tons of new wines in each issue, tells only [... read more ...] I had visited so many tasting rooms this summer that it was often difficult for me to keep this blog totally up to date. Keep in mind, what you read on these pages only represents a fraction of the entire story. Living in the Napa Valley, I’ve always had so much material to draw upon that I decided to focus mainly on the positive, since it’s much more constructive to recommend something that’s good than to speak out against something that’s not so good. Surprisingly, I had failed to mention Paradigm Winery after I had [... read more ...] |
 
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© 2012 The Accidental Wino |
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