My favorite wine of the evening was the DiamAndes Gran Reserva 2007, the first wine produced by this promising vineyard with the help of Michel Rolland: it is a blend of 70% Malbec and 30% Cabernet. Do you recall the California gold rush from your fourth grade history class? The 130?hectare Argentina News argentina brune laplane diamandes

Aesthetics always help. They are all pretty much blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cab Franc and Petit Verdot. It just depends on what you are looking for and your wine merchant should be able to help you find the right blend for your get together. Ah, the Holidays. Speaking of the perfect gift what about wine.

These sessions can be helpful to some, but although I truly love the classroom at Astor I find that listening to a (clearly biased & paid) moderator tell me what to look for in a certain wine is more detrimental than helpful. What a difference a little marketing & the word FREE can do. then attended one of the sessions.

This could help to make events of this size more manageable. The whole Texier family seemed to be in attendance (husband, wife & kids) and I enjoyed the wines but communication was not great as their English could have used some help. Also from Merus was their '05 Merus Cab blended with 5% Petit Verdot & Malbec.

Merlot, Cab, Syrah - been there done that. lighter wine than a Cab, merlot or Syrah, Barbera is said to be the most (or second most) planter varietal in Italy. No, not the Petit Sirah/Zin blend - another people know is a favorite of mine. This was the 5th year that this event was held and there seem to be more wines each year. 

No Cab Franc, Petit Verdot or even any Syrah (shiraz). I'm off to Israel this week to meet with my fabulous boutique wine producing contacts and help to bring back NY/US worthy wines.  There were only 7 of us there, and 5 of the 7 can be considered "industry" people (the other two are "public defenders"). No Merlot.

No, I was not the winemaker & admittedly, not even as assistant, but I DID help out and as such I take pride in said wine's positive review. Well ladies and gentlemen, the results are in. will be copying a list of wines & their scores from Israeli Wine Critic Daniel Rogov's "Wine & Food Forum".  More comments later.