Here's what I love about these wines: they taste honest, like real representations of the grapes and soil from that place. Or maybe your shops focus on high scoring wines, and these wines don't really feature in the publications that dole out the points. If you haven't yet done so, taste a Puzelat wine. Everything is good. MORE >>

For example, winemakers now generally kill off natural yeasts with sulphur and replace them with designer strains that can add flavours of, say, strawberry, cocoa or banana.The yeasts are often fed urea when they get tired, to keep fermentation humming at ever-higher sugar and alcohol levels, thereby creating bigger bodied wines for todays tastes. MORE >>

Unless you often buy at auction, or have been buying and cellaring wine for a very long time, you're probably like me - you drink scores of younger wines for every truly mature bottle you drink. remember asking my friend Peter about this as we drove from one cellar tasting to another in Burgundy a little over a year ago. Fully mature? MORE >>

tasted the 2004 ** recently at Serrafina. It will receive a higher score if served at a proper termperature and with proper aeration and/or bottle age. Tags: Cellar Selection 2004 2 stars Italy Brunello di Montalcino It was served slightly too warm and without decanting - so not off to a great start. MORE >>

A friend recently hosted his tasting group and invited me as a stand-in. They were blind tasting 2004 white Burgundies, a great theme in and of itself. But the group added a fascinating wrinkle to this tasting. Would the "best" wines get the best scores? scored it an 88. scored it a 91. 88 my score. MORE >>