Marvin Shanken asked Helen Turley to increase his personal allocation of Marcassin while presenting her an award from his magazine, Wine Spectator. Robert Parker tasted the wines with winemaker Helen Turley. At their tasting together, the Marcassin owners poured the ’06 for Parker alongside their ’06s. 97 points. MORE >>

Imagine having to review this wine for a magazine or some sort of publication, having to score it based on one experience in 2008. How can one bottle of a wine, never mind one sip and spit at a tasting, provide sufficient information to assign the wine an absolute rating, a set of tasting notes that readers should accept as truth? MORE >>

BG: You'll taste these all in the next few weeks? I've made a career on tasting wines young and having a sense of whether they will age well, or be better young, but I have to check on them to follow their development. Their wine vocabulary encompasses 20 descriptors and a point score. NR: By tasting and drinking. MORE >>

It replaces the numerical scoring system with some strongly flavored common sense. Choosing the perfect wine for a special occasion is like selecting the perfect pitch to hit an RBI double with men in scoring position.&# — Bobby Abreu , starting right fielder, New York Yankees. So don’t delay for this personalized gift! MORE >>

He dribbles to the other end of the court, pulls up for a jumper right before the three point line, shoots, and scores! But a tasting last week in the Barossa Valley did showcase some of Australia’s most amazing wines of all time. It’s the wine tasting equivalent of a buzzer beater and a walk off grand slam all in one. MORE >>