I’m going to take a fair amount of, uh, merde for this but the new(ish) McManis Lodi AVA California Cabernet is among the five or six best Cabernets I’ve tasted from anywhere…and it remains one of the most jaw-dropping, howling, irrational bargains in the entire world of wine.
QUIT falling for the communal delusions of “Best”. You have taste buds. USE ‘EM. Listen politely to what your friends say about your beer, your cat, your car, your house, your hair style and then forget it.
I don’t need to be the smart guy in the room. I DO need to be that guy sitting in his seat, a yelling his head off for the Kraken, sipping a great Washington indie beer that I didn’t have to smuggle in.
Walter Dacon wines, vintage after vintage, are in the top two or three Syrahs I sample from all of Washington and are sometimes flatly the best I taste.
You DO NOT need to spend anywhere north of $50 to get a great bottle of wine for that will shock ‘n’ awe your family, for holiday dinners, or your friend, as a gift.
Take an hour, step out of America for a while, and slide into a tiny Euro-style glen where great things are being done with so little fanfare that it’s almost a secret. Olalla Winery is The Real Deal.
We assume that an 89 point wine cannot be as good as a 94 point wine and the economic ramifications of that presumption are MASSIVE; the sort of fatheaded ‘tude that can put smaller wineries out of business.
A great deal of wine appreciation has to do with our early wine indoctrination and whatever the current, ever-changing cultural Hot Thang was when we were at our most impressionable.
