How to drink nice wine at maybe the best price

We always say research is important.

I am not referring to over researching, there are few steps can make you enjoy wine at a reasonable price.

Approach 1: Loyalty

Vineyards / Wine shop loves return customers. You anyway won't have sufficient storage at home, no point to buy in bulls and extend your expense on storage. En primeur is another story. 

Once you get along well with the people at the shop, vineyard owners or even email online, you can start bargain for discount. You can also self volunteer as the promoter (influencer) of their wines. You might get a discount of 10%-15% per purchase.

Approach 2: Groupon

I am not referring to clicking online coupons on Groupon that sells $80 Bordeaux blend.

Common group interest will bring bulk purchase discount benefit. 

Be proactive, volunteer to be the organizer of wine tasting / wine dinners that when you made participants interested in the same wine, then you can bargain for discount. That's Asian culture, learn from them.

Approach 3: Direct Shipment

If somehow you like boutique vineyards of specific region, you can arrange group shipment by consolidating them under one logistics company. Make sure they have license to export alcholic items. Then arrange local logistics company to receive and deliver to your home. This requires some connections to logistics company and slight research on licensing if needed.

Approach 4: Attention to details

When wine shop / website highlights to you on a discount. That may not be true. That's marked up and discount. Go for low season such as July, August, where (except rosé) price sensitive wines in general are cheaper. If you have beloved

Brands, monitor whole year price fluctuation and you manage to fine the best time.

Another attention is the once in a blue moon opportunity: 

someone enters a wrong price.

When the price is unreasonably low, check if bad quality, otherwise quickly buy few cases. Remember screencap offers, transactions for proof. Don't care about them saying transactions invalid. When they earn by offering higher price accidentally they won't say that. 

Hope you all have the chance to get reasonable price for your wine. Most important of all is to know what are your favourite wines that you should be keeping track of the price. Cheers~

What makes 1970 a memorable year?

Year 1970:

- The Beatles broken up

- 1st floppy disk was invented

- World Trade Centre completed

- Peru Earthquake that killed 72k people

- Introduction of bar codes system

Each of them is equally remarkable.

Some of them embedded as people's turning point in life.

Some of them already vanished from today's society.

In wine industry, 1970 also marked as an advancement. 

Today, we are honored to taste two from our uncle:

Cos d'estournel 1970

Blossom after 2 hrs decanting

Colour: brick red, slight tears

Smell: Scented with acid, blackberries truffle, coffee bean, soggy wet wood.

Taste: gamey, flat, short aftertaste, med complexity, mushroom, truffle, black fruit, pepper

Conclusion: Not recommend. Even if so, drink quick as the peak passed in 30 mins after.

Grand vin deLeoville du marquis de las cases 1970

Colour: More garnet than the estournel.

Nose: Less acidic in nose. Violet, red berries, cacao, coffee bean.

Palate: well- balanced, soft tannin, good complexity.Red currant fruity longer length, Smoky taste

Conclusion: More structures and full body than d'estournel. However it also passed its peak, should drink 10 years earlier. Depreciate in 1.5 hours. 

We don't know whether these 2 wines have changed people's view on wine in the last decade, we know these 2 brands are still famous and their quality is still improving. Enjoy~

Spanish blind tasting night

After 8 months, I finally was able to join my Sommelier classmates and teacher's blind tasting gathering at a Central private club with Cantonese cuisine. Sorry for being ingenuous, not knowing the menu in advance made the scope too vast to have any food pairing. Nevertheless, I was so impressed with their raptness over each gathering.

Game rule in a nutshell. Each of us brought our wrapped bottle. The rest had to guess to our closest knowledge on grapes, terroir, vintage and location of the producing region.

Presentor then had to depict the stories behind this wine, the vineyard, style and the reason they selected the wine. At the end of dinner, all of us voted their favorite bottle excl. their own. One with most votes would be rewarded with a free meal of the night. Fair enough, just don't put too much cost to the bottle *grin*

Here are the selections of the night

1. Tondonia 1998 Gran Reserva

Rioja macabeo
Look: Golden yellow, slight tears. Clean

Nose: Chrysanthemum, buttery,elderflower, high acidity

Palate: vanilla, honey, oaky, long finish, waxy, end with acidity

Reserva: 24 maturation + 6 cask maturation

Price: $278 from Watson's Wine

2. Amma Albariño rais baixas 2012

Look: Lemon, clear, tears

Nose: Guava, pomergranate, peach, pear,mineral, aromatic

Palate: acidity med+; med dry.
Grape : Albariño from Rais Baixas

New version: late harvest
Price: ??

3. Tondonia 1999 Gran Reserva

Look: golden yellow , golden than 1st

Nose: buttery, sulphur, acid, chemicals,eucalyptus, 

Palate: oaky, plum, tingling poppy on tongue
Price: $298 

4.Corullon Mancia

Look:Garnet red, sentiment

Nose: Leather, peppery, red berries, 

Palate: black peppery, spicy, Thai spice, 

Grape: Grenache, Temperanillo from a village close to Priorat

Price: $468

5. Carmelo Rodero 2011 Crianza

Look: purple red, tears, clear

Nose: Oak, eucalyptus, red current, big body, pungent, jammy, chocolate

Palate: Mocha, tannin, chocolate, new oak, lengthy, vanilla,
(12mths maturation +24 barrel)
Grape: 95% temperanillo 5% Cabernet Sauvignon from Ribera du duero
Price: $480 

6. La Cima

Look: ruby, clear

Nose: celery, cherry, spice

Palate: tannin, candy, spicy, french oak 18mths, new, leathery, licorice

Grape: Mancia from Ribera sarca
The dog on the label is named Merlot
Price: from Vineyard for free

7. Tossals 

Look: Ruby, clear

Nose: fruity, cherry, sweet, red fruit

Palate: new world, Pinot noir, sweet, strawberry, mid length
Grape: Samso from Montsant

Price: ??

8. Psi 2010

2009 better Peter sisseck, 

Temperanillo 100%

Look: ruby, clear

Nose: chestnut, black fruit, leather, violet

Palate: Complex, med length, full body, asian spice
Grape: Temperanilla from Ribera del Duero
Price: 289 from Regis Wine

9. Enate 2013

Look: Lemon, clear

Nose: Light citrus, fruit driven

Palate: Med+ acidity new version Albariño
Grape: Sumatano Chardonnay 14% alc.; Single vineyard High altitude

House wine of 3 star Michelin restaurant in France

Price: $260

Best wine of the night was #4, case the votes were divided amongst 2 Tondonia. All are value for money. I will attempt grabbing some bottles as a decent weekend chillout wine.

Looking forward to next gathering...

母親節的小禮物 Small gift for Mother's Day - Brown Brothers Muscat

Something little, something sweet.

My helper is always the most caring so she already sent flower bouquet for my mum's birthday. What should I do?

No doubt, a bottle of wine. This has to be  little and decent as my mum is not a wine buddy.

Few tips on how to make the gift looked customized and decent:

1. Sweet, not too sweet

2. Small, woman like cute gifts

3. Decorations, I did buy a little wrapping to wrap it up

4. Easy to consume

5. Affordable

So a screwcap semi sweet half bottle Brown Brother Muscat becomes the choice. I bought some fancy accessories to wrap it like a necklace and here we go.

Honey, citrus peel and floral sweetness dominant wine. Simple and welcoming bouquet impressed mum easily. She loves it so much. I propose her to sip it daily when she is enjoying little Chinese dessert such as floral squares or biscuits. 

Happy Mother's Day~

Price: $117 at Wine-searcher.com

Shafer 思福酒庄 - Favorite USA Chardonnay ever 最「美」的霞多麗

Again, some old stories. Want to mention it as I so wanna buy it for next Wine class,
however the shop is under renovation, sad that I don't know where to get it.

2 years ago summer, was taking a family getaway trip to Napa Valley , where we once dined
in Bouchon - the 2 Michelin Star restuarant, for... night snack.
What a full scale of bookings that they are extending us to the night snack session starting at 10pm.
Yes, 10 pm. I recalled clearly we finished around 1am that night.

Food are not that decent, they can't be called a meal as it's just random dishes available.

So we ended up appreciate the oysters and Chardonnay pairing the most. Or this is just the effect of compare and contrast? Already too tired to tell.

Deep gold colour, some tears after a swirl. Nose is full of pineapple and mineral, huge bouquet right below the nose. You can tell how full body this is. Typical American style. 

Balanced acidity and med+ alcohol, creamy and stickiness on minerality, exotic fruits, vanilla and apricot note and oak surfaced. With such a long length that perfectly matches the mineral and creamy based oysters, it glimmered our night snack. Sparkles! Believe that's a good quality wine that can last for 8-10years.

Desperately looking for it when back in Hong Kong. Found one at a wine shop in Kowloon Bay $531 vintage 2008, however currently under shop renovation.

Anyone find this elsewhere? Please let me know thanks.

Chateau Clinet 克里奈酒庒 2000 - Vintage is not everything 年份不是一切

Sharing wine of the day via facebook, twitter, instalgram, whats app is almost a weekend must-do in my circle of friends.

Not only once I received pictures of Clinet. Clean and flat font of word printed onto the label. Simple and easy to recall.

Finally I had a chance to taste it, from an introduction to a new wine buddy.

I said "Long to drink this. It has been on my to-try list for a while." He then sighed with a wicked smile. "I did not bring the good year along, hope this won't devastate your image to it." This is a 2000 bottle, not a good year? 

Velvet colour, with med tears.

Pungent on the nose red berries, merlot based, typical pomerol, hint of leathery and tar at the end. 

Less strong in volume and thickness in palate than what is expected from the nose. Medium acidity and medium aftertaste. Softer and rounder body after opened an hour and some bitter chocolate with more plummy taste, yet the optimal didn't last. Harsher acid right after.

What is not favorable of Bordeaux is though they are very consistent in flavors, unless there is a change in winemaker, their output depends so much of the weather / terroir. In a good year, they have excellent potential for storage and marvelous quality, in a bad year, you get similar palette yet a lot weaker and drastic drop in quality after hours, sometimes even just in minutes. However what makes the 95T vintage 2000 pomerol a worse year for Clinet?

Let's reference the score. RP87, one of the worse year in the 2000s. Reading the history, that's because the chateau has switched its owners for several rounds while vintage 2000 was from Jean-Louis Laborde who owned from 1998 and died in a car accident in 2001. Until then the successor the industrious Ronan Laborde took over and expand Clinet further in 2012. No doubt that the 2000 vintage would be a struggled year to produce good wine. Guess things have been well now in Ronan's hand.

No offense, normally within same budget, I'd rather have something less famous, and something cheaper to surprise or impress myself. Or perhaps for this new friend who in fond of Italian wine tries to drive me away from big French to cuddle the big Italian~ yea, you actually made it, and I now understand why you wear the wicked smile. 

Just that I never have been sticking to any country, I am an utopian on wine. Next time, just impress me with an Italian wine will do *wink*

Sassicaia 2008 - 頑固的小石顆

翻閱一下自己的手機photostream便深知不妙!

每年說要儲錢，諸多克制自己買酒的預算，還說一定要記述，否則喝過也忘記。我在最近4個月喝過的二百多瓶酒，只寫過一篇，真對不起它們呢。雖然很多短短的描述，總比忘記甚麼回憶都沒有好。

在新年喝的一瓶：

意大利四大酒王之一 Sassicaia- 譯為「西施佳雅」(音：沙色咖也），幻想婀娜多姿的西施，甚有詩意。

主要成份為Cabernet Sauvignon 跟Cabernet Franc。一貫Tuscany特色。較短暫的歷史(1944年起),加上獨特的定位，它獲得唯一有自家酒莊名稱的DOC - Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC, 令這酒王一炮而紅，獨當一面。

2008 年份被譽為近10年來3個最出色之一（其餘為2001與2004年),榮獲 Tre Bicchieri，cingue grappolirating from Duemilavini, annual guide of Association of Italian Sommeliers等推介。

呈深紅寶石色, 濃厚的黑醋，布冧味，香氣還是緊閉。酒身中性，酸性為主，果味更飽滿，豐碩的土壤味道。開了半小時，單寧依然硬身。再過了個半小時，單寧才軟化，就像頑固，倔強的孩童，大器晩成。

高峰期到時，果馥香氣洋溢，更帶出紫羅蘭及香料等味，為此酒添上複雜性(complexity)，可恨是我們已完成正餐。幸而在享用甜品時尚可點一份半溶Camerbert cheese ，剛合時。

回家後查閱Robert Parker 酒評："Readers who can afford to wait will be treated to a sublime wine once this settles down in bottle. " 又一例子證明開瓶時間的重要性。

　　Sassicaia 西施佳雅 2008

　　酒園：Tenuta San Guido

　　等級：Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC

　　葡萄品種：Cabernet Sauvignon 85% Cabernet Franc 15%

　　酒精度：13.5%

　　評分：RP96 / WS94

       適飲期：2018-2038

       購自： $1380 from anonymous uncle