What's new

Tried any good wines?

After my review on Yellow Tail's Shiraz, someone asked whether or not we had a threat on this. So without further ado...

Anyone tried any good wines lately? Right now I'm nursing my bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz. A good wine, though I've had better. I'm going to try and poach some eggs with the stuff in a few days.
 
Yup, that was me. How about any of the other yellow tail offerings? Any good?

I've had quite a few over the years. My take is that they are pretty much always a good basic value wine. Never anything really special, but almost always nice and very drinkable.

-Mo
 
Thanks Mo, I've always been particularly interested in these as they are readily available just about anywhere and the price is right.
 
Anyone tried any good wines lately? Right now I'm nursing my bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz. A good wine, though I've had better. I'm going to try and poach some eggs with the stuff in a few days.

Before I answer the question, what do you like? I have an aversion to oak, American mostly and French to a lesser degree. I am a huge fan of stainless steel aged wines, I love the taste of grapes. I am not a huge fan of muscadines; concord, scuppernong and the like belong in jelly in my opinion. I love reds and whites, from dry to sweet. If I am describing your tastes, I am a huge fan of Wintergreen Winery in Nellysford, VA. Great stuff and a good family running the show.
 
Darn you. Always with the double magnum of Margaux....

And I feel like I am basking in luxury when I break out a bottle of Zind Humbrecht Gewurtz....

-Mo
 
OMG...........Yellow Tail is to Australian wines what McDonald's is to the Restaurant industry!

Yellow Tail is warm climate produced wine, highly irrigated, and high alcohol volumes..........it's a very "round", and juicy wine, but rwhat I consider poor varietal character.

If you want a good wine, try anything from the Pyrenees in Victoria, Australia.
Dalwhinnie, Warrrenmang and Summerfield are all Pyrenees produced wines from Australia, and are really, really, really great.

Everyone knows and loves Barossa Valley wines from Australia, but the Pyrenees wine are from a cooler climate, just as big, and have lovely savoury flavours which just amaze nyone that has never tried them!

Get some at any cost!
 

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
Darn you. Always with the double magnum of Margaux....

The '88 wasn't that good for Margaux, and almost everyone else.

And I feel like I am basking in luxury when I break out a bottle of Zind Humbrecht Gewurtz....

-Mo


That's because you are. ZH is perhaps the best producer on Earth. Everything they make is great. Their cheapest selections are wonderful wines, and their good stuff is as good as it gets. Their Gewurtz is about the best I ever tried.
 

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
I need to open some of these soon. Getting the itch.
 

Attachments

  • $1.jpg
    35.9 KB · Views: 75
I need to open some of these soon. Getting the itch.

Jay, quick question. If properly stored, does wine just keep getting better? Or is like a bell curve in nature, where once you've reached the top, it then goes down hill?

Your pictures just got me thinking.
 
Jay, quick question. If properly stored, does wine just keep getting better? Or is like a bell curve in nature, where once you've reached the top, it then goes down hill?

Your pictures just got me thinking.

Depends on the wine. But for a wine capable of aging, yes there is a bell curve, where there is a peak age.
 

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
Jay, quick question. If properly stored, does wine just keep getting better? Or is like a bell curve in nature, where once you've reached the top, it then goes down hill?

Your pictures just got me thinking.


Although there may seem to be hundreds of storied names, the vast majority of wine is not intended for long term storage. Probably 99% falls into the category of what I like to call "aged on the car seat" wines.

Great wines that store well usually possess a great underpinning of tannins- those mouthpuckering components that may cause you to say yeech. It's a natural preservative, and helps the wine last, sometimes for many decades. The problem is this- the wine must posses enough fruit to last until the tannins soften. If so, you get a delicious drink many years down the road. An example to the contrary would be the pictured '88 Margaux- very harsh and heavy tannins, and little fruit. By the time it's soft enough to drink, there won't be anything left to enjoy.

No matter what anyone tells you, predicting the future of a wine is a dicey proposition, at best. Some wines go into a dumb period, then emerge as legends. Others just fade away. It's a good idea to drink a wine too soon rather than too late (within reason).

A lot also depends on the nature of the vintage- some are soft and approachable, others are hard and restrained. For example, the Leoville Las Cases and Pichon Lalande shown from the lovely 1982 vintage are drinking perfectly right now, yet may last another fifty years. The 87's, five years younger, were shot more than a decade ago.
 
Jay, quick question. If properly stored, does wine just keep getting better? Or is like a bell curve in nature, where once you've reached the top, it then goes down hill?

The much more knowledgeable Jay definitely covered that better, but I'll throw in a couple of comments.

It is generally a bell curve, for wines that are up for aging at all. A lot of decent reds will improve a little with a couple of years. Especially if they are very tannic. Less tannic wines, not so much, generally. Sweet wines are also more amenable to aging because sugar, like tannins, acts as a preservative to some extent. Hence one of the reasons vintage ports almost always age well for a very long time (the combination of tannins and sugars).

It is hard to lay it to a strict bell curve though, because it is a complex process of changing flavors, and "better" is rather subjective. A case in point would be German rieslings. A high quality auslese will age for quite a long time, but it becomes a very different wine from a young one. Someone who likes the fresh, fruity characteristic in rieslings would hate it, more or less. Even with red wines that age well, some people might prefer the same wine younger, when it will be more tannic and bolder, and others may prefer it with more age, when it is a little mellower.

-Mo
 
Top Bottom