failure rate) was to leave my wine comfort zone more often as I continue to expand my trapped palate. Somewhere among my 50 New Year's resolutions (99.9% To do so, I will have to taste, I mean drink, more wines that I never tried or wines I just never liked. So, to start off the new year I opened one of my least favorite wines, Zinfandel. MORE >>

want to stop doing that, but I'll save that and other blog improvements for 2008 for another post. Wine-related fantasy ( rated PG-13, anyway ) : Team up with 10 high quality bloggers/writers to create a new website with wine information and notes. This is my 200th post here at the ol' Brooklynguy blog. Kind of hard to believe. MORE >>

will rate these wines according to my own carefully thought out, sustainable, local, and hand-crafted scale. 2008 Jean et Gilles Lafouge Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru La Chapelle, $30, Imported by Fruit of the Vines. 2008 Reinhard & Beate Knebel Riesling trocken, $14, Imported by Mosel Wine Merchant. Yes, I do. MORE >>

Some wines, such as Tokay, have require a minimum level 60 grams of RS and rate wines by sweetness with six puttonyos being instant diabetes. It’s pretty easy to call a wine sweet: it has a perceptible level of residual sugar in it (five grams of residual sugar is often considered the threshold of perception). need water!&# MORE >>

Serge is as well known for his Sommelier skills as his cooking – he was French Sommelier of the year in 2008). If guests wish to stay on at La Madelene to site-see under their own steam they will be most welcome to retain their room at our standard Chambres d`Hotes winter rate. You can read about it below. Thursday 1st December. MORE >>