What's your favorite wine?

I have found the most delightful red wine grown in the Pacific Northwest.... Duck Pond Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Both, very reasonably priced and IMHO, excellent in body and taste. For white wine I seem to favor the Germain Weinberg 'Liebfraumilch'. This isn't as great in body, but is, as far as I'm concerned, A+ in tastes in going along with dishes such as pork and salmon.

Okay DU. What's your wine experience? The price for the wine I wish to keep around $10.00 per bottle. The Duck Pond, I have found out here for $7.50 per bottle..... very cheap for wine of that caliber. The Liebfraumilch I found for just over four dollars a bottle. That one is fairly cheap, but like I said, the taste is what I'm buying.

Oh, I'm sorry. I though you said "whine."

:D

in the time it took to find that pic... :D

Nicely done.:)

Oh, sorry, you said wine, not whine... never mind :)

...I wanna go to Miami!...

If so, one really nice small winery is Stangeland. It's in the same general area as Duck Pond -- because I know my friend and I stopped there when we went on an impromptu tour a couple years ago.

I'm primarily a Chard drinker (reds give me migraines, and most other whites are too sweet for my taste).

My personal favorite, however, is the chardonnay from the Cinnebar winery, in California's Santa Cruz mountains. They also have a central coast variety, but that one's not as good.

A nice Cabernet Sauvignon mixed with a little beef broth and a dollop of sour cream is either heaven or a good cure for a sore throat.

Serious drinking.... Woodbridge Sauvignon Blanc. Woodsy, smokey, and you can get really drunk while pretending that it isn't alcohol it's culture.

Khash.

...I usually pour a glass of Mondavi or Woodbridge Chardonnay. When I want something special I'm partial to zinfindels-- my current favorites include the Bonny Doon "Beastly Old Vines" Cardinal Zin and Michael David's Seven Deadly Zins. Yummy!

What I'm looking for here is quality with food (If at possible, under ten dollars)!

I live across the Rhein from Schloss Johannisburg and had my eyes opened when I moved here. A few of the ‘Liebfraumilch’ vineyards are near here.

One of the first things I noticed was the price difference -you can find some very good wines for only 2-3 dollars equivalent, cheaper than milk or coke. A twenty euro bottle is fairly extravagant. It wasn't long before I noticed the huge overall difference in the level of quality. A bit of a shock really, one of those 'oh, now I get it' moments. I remember thinking at that time I would keep a list of favorites, but quickly gave up that notion -too much to keep track.

It becomes part of daily life. Friends were very patient with my ‘learning curve’ and would often mention a great find and the store will quickly be sold out of the shipment. It's on every table at nearly every meal and not unusual to go through 2-3 bottles with friends. Every household has a little stock to share. Even at work -a glass or two of sekt for a little celebration.

The ongoing wine debate here has always been over the quality of German reds (with a few exceptions I vote ‘no’, use it for the glühwein). I still have much to learn about German whites and all their subtleties. Don’t miss out on the sweet, special occasion Eisweine and Spätburgunders.

Our favorites tend to be red and dry, French and Italian. Brunello and Barolo are the high occasion wines, with Montepulchiano, some Barbera, Dolcetto fairly often. Chianti for everyday. Anything from Bordeaux, Bourgone, or Provence is almost good and many will be astonishing. We've had great finds from Chile, Australia, and especially South Africa. And don't forget Spain. We've had some terrific wines from Sicily and Majorca as well. And Greece. Who am I leaving out?

French Chardonnay is an occasional favorite, a Soave last night. Obviously I could go on and on and still haven’t mentioned that favorite, so I would have to say a ‘Saint-Emilion’ from Bordeaux. I have no idea of the US price and some can go quite high, but that’s absolutely not necessary at all to find a good one you enjoy and send you on a delightful quest for the next.

I’m not surprised the topic of wine should show up in a political forum. I found that the Europeans exporters tend to ship their lowest quality stock and save the best for local sales. At the same time I've seen the cheapest mass-market plunk from the US selling for an outrageous 15-20 euro. Then they get the impression the US can't produce good wine. A reasonable quality California wine costs a small fortune here. At the same time you might pick up a bottle of Italian chianti for dinner and never understand why someone elsewhere would be enthused.

And it’s not just the exporters who create high prices –don’t forget it was the zealots of the last century who destroyed the US wine industry and plowed the vineyards which took generations to cultivate. Now they keep the prices artificially high through sin taxes and limits on interstate sales. The bastards. If that isn’t bad enough, they want to make wine drinking part of their culture war.

Don’t let them do it to us; wine is one of the great joys in life. It’s meant to shared and shared often.

Oh, and as far as the ‘red wine headaches’, I’ve been through that and found it was a combination of the sulfates and highly tannic content in some wine, especially from California, some from Chile. ‘Dry and red’ certainly does not mean ‘tannic’ or acrid, so keep trying.

I love it; if I want a gentle, stress-reducing buzz, I'll get a bottle of Cabernet. Washington State and Oregeon, mostly.

I also make my own wine; though it's a pretty trashy way:

http://www.wonderwine.com/

But dammit, thies stuff comes out pretty good; the cherry wine is semi-dry and kicks you into a Bukowski-styled rampage for a few hours. Even the red is shockingly fine..

there's always Pruno:

http://www.blacktable.com/gillin030901.htm

To say that it tastes like it was filtered through the entire 1964 Cleveland Browns game-worn socks would be offensive to the socks. Timothy Leary or Terence MecKenna never took a trip like a Pruno-fueled one..

2001 coppola reserve cab is nice and dry...

Mundo Nuevo from Chile is incredible. (pinot noir I think, i just had one glass and then left the restaurant, I have been thinking about that glass for almost a month now!)

From their website: "For a whimsical wine that brings a touch of Provence to the dinner table, uncork a new label named Red Bicyclette. This brand from California's wine giant, E. & J. Gallo, is made in the south of France. The vibrant yellow label captures the warmth of the region with a beret-wearing Frenchman riding a red bicycle loaded with a basket of baguettes. The 2003 Red Bicyclette Vin de Pays d'Oc Chardonnay is crisply acidic yet soft and smooth-textured. A kiss of oak imparts aromas of spice, which are followed by juicy ripe fruit flavors".

Way, way too pricey for my tastes though.

I've been trying to remember the name of a vineyard in Oregon that I saw featured on PBS some years back, family run, striving for quality. Amity? Maybe. Is Duck Pond an Oregonian wine? They all seem interesting and I seem to remember having a bottle once, enjoying it, but not being able to remember the name (typical me, and not even Goggle will help).

I remember some California red wines some time back that were sold in gallon jugs (=jug wines), and I remember them as being pretty good and some of the box wines, especially the whites, are good to have around the house, though again I remember the grape but not the label.

Also, there's been a political struggle over whether or not to allow interstate sales by mail. You can imagine who is on which side.