Wine Blog » Wine Collection

Wine Rack Kit

Wineguy — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:00:11 +0000

Redwood Barrel Bin Wine Rack (5 Bottle)
Dimensions: 14 1/4? (w) x 14 1/2? (h) 9 1/2? (d) Handcrafted from premium redwood Great for table and counter tops Ideal for parties or everyday use Makes a great gift Looking for a unique counter top wine rack with style? The Redwood Barrel Bin

12 Bottle X Cube-Stack Wine Rack
Stack racks high and save on space! One level, two levels, three…. Easily adjust the size and configuration of your wine collection with this 12-bottle*, stackable hardwood rack! Designed to fit securely one on top of the other for space-saving storage. Strong, weighty hardwood allows you to stack from floor to ceiling safely. Stand alone or stack with the 12-Bottle Cube Rack and Wine Glass Rack for flexible storage. Perfect on a countertop. Easy to assemble. No hardware required to stack, but should be secured to the wall if 3 or more are stacked high. Walnut-stained hardwood. View entire line of Cube-Stack Racks. Size: 15-1/2″H x 18-7/8″W x 10-9/16″D *Bottle capacities are when storing standard Bordeaux 750mL bottles.

Purchase Wine – Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide 6th Edition : The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Vintages, Prices, and Ratings for More Than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions

Wineguy — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:00:21 +0000

Raise a glass to Washington’s wine industry
Washington is working hard to maintain the aerospace industry’s vigorous presence in the state, but another event in the news is a reminder of the rich dynamic that sustains the economy. The Washington State Wine Commission and Seattle’s

Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide 6th Edition : The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Vintages, Prices, and Ratings for More Than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions
Thoroughly revised and updated, this sixth edition of the Parker’s Wine Buyer’s Guide has been eagerly awaited by seasoned collectors and occasional drinkers alike. No one wants to waste his or her precious dollars on an unenjoyable bottle, and with Parker’s advice in hand, no one ever will. Employing his famous 100-point rating system, Parker rates more than 8,000 wines from all the major wine-producing regions in the world — including newly expanded sections on the popular wines of California and Italy. Each wine producer is evaluated separately, and Parker’s independence allows him to be completely honest in his opinions. In addition, the book includes other essential information, such as how to buy and store wine, how to spot a badly stored and abused bottle, and how to find the best wine values for under $10.

Customer Review: THE Bible for wine people.
If you are a beginner or a total expert, this book is your constant source of review–it never gets outdated because one always needs to refer to it. Even to those who are not Robert Parker fans, have this book in their wine collection. A MUST!

Customer Review: Five books in one
Parker’s guide currently available came out some time already and does not cover the latest vintages, but the book is still an incredible source of information about wine-making, geographical regions etc. It’s as if we were buying a few good books in one. You have over 1,600 pages in the book! As such, it offers very good value, especially at the discounted price at which it’s available now. It is especially useful for people interested in European wines, as it does not cover New World brands in such detail as it does, for example, French or German wines. I strongly recommend the book not just to wine buyers but also to people who want to know more about wines. No other book offers so much at this price. Personally, I treat the reviews as guidelines only though; You may not necessarily like the wines Parker likes, or you may not necessarily be able to afford them. The book does not cover the cheapest lot

Best Wine – Cellaring Wine: A Complete Guide to Selecting, Building, and Managing Your Wine Collection

Wineguy — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:00:14 +0000

Red wine ingredient resveratrol may boost metabolism in men
It has been discovered that the chemical resveratrol, found in small quantities in red wine, improves metabolic health in obese men. A recent study, published in the scientific journal Cell Metabolism, tested the effects of the chemical

Cellaring Wine: A Complete Guide to Selecting, Building, and Managing Your Wine Collection
Beer is just a beverage, but wine is an experience. There?s an aura of romance, a hint of the sublime, to bringing a bottle up from your own cellar, carefully drawing out the cork, pouring the wine into a goblet, and taking the first delectable sip.

Now Jeff Cox, author of From Vines to Wines (89,000 copies in print) and a connoisseur well respected in wine circles, shows you how easy it is to have a wine cellar of your own.

But Cellaring Wine is not a home-building project book. In some cases, the would-be wine collector doesn?t have to do much building at all. Rather, Cellaring Wine teaches anyone who loves wine how to create a working system of selecting wines that will age well, know how to lay them down properly, and recognize when they have matured to their full glory and are ready to be savored.

Cox pinpoints the optimum conditions of temperature, light, and humidity for a wine cellar. He walks you through possible locations for your wine cellar ? whether in the basement, an old root cellar, the back of your garage, or even a closet or room in your house ? and what each location requires. He explains when you?ll need a climate-control device (and how much they cost). And he discusses the pros and cons of buying a freestanding unit that is much like a refrigerator.

Then Cox tackles the question that most troubles wine lovers: Which wines will improve with age, and which won?t? This chapter alone is worth the price of the book, since nothing is more disappointing to a wine lover than waiting years to open a bottle of wine only to discover that it was at its peak when it was laid down.

Cox shows you how to keep accurate records so you know at a glance ? without having to hunt through the wine racks ? what you have, where it?s located, and how much to buy so the cellar doesn?t become depleted. And he gives you a crash course in appreciating the fragrance and flavor of a fine wine.Perhaps best of all, Cox gets readers excited about the possibilities of having their own wine cellar. After all, a cellar is not just a storage room, it?s a university where good young wines become great.

Customer Review: Cellaring and much more….
The title of this book is a little misleading, the book does cover selecting, building, and managing wine. However, this information only acocunts for about 1/4 of the book. The rest of the book talks about wine in general. The cellaring chapters were very detailed and answered all of my questions. The other 3/4 of the book was interesting and covered your basic intro to wine information. If you want to know more about wine, or are looking for a complete guide on different ways to cellar wine, then this book is for you.

Customer Review: Exactly what it says…
Jeff Cox has written a wonderful guide for cellaring wine which is nearly complete in all its details. More importantly, he has managed to write it in a way that is highly readable.

Wine Rack For Sale

Wineguy — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:00:24 +0000

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J.K. Adams MWR-40 40-Bottle Wine Rack, Natural
Introduced over 25 years ago, our geometrically proportioned wine racks have sold in the millions. They’ll fit into virtually any space ??? and are infinitely expandable. Each wine rack kit comes packed with enough extra joining pins to allow you to add on another rack in the future and another… and another… as your wine collection grows. Precisely constructed of solid hardwood and put together like tinker toys, the pins seat so snugly into the octagonal beams that no glue is needed for assembly. Each bottle is securely cradled, even in earthquake country. Three finish options allow you to select a casual or more elegant look. Available in unfinished hardwood beams and pins (N); lacquered oak beams and pins (OK ??? pictured in circle); or Penguin – lacquered oak beams with black pins (PG). Specify choice N, OK, PG

Customer Review: Dom Perignon Doesn’t Fit

After a tiring and protracted assembly process (more on that later) I felt a groundswell of excitement as I loaded on my most prized bottle – a 1998 vintage Dom Perignon.

Guess what?

The bottle is too fat. It doesn’t fit.

I gulped as I grabbed the Perier Jouet. It made it, barely, by maybe an eighth of an inch. So did the various Pinots Noir and pretty much everything else until I hit my four bottles of Montebello Brut Metodo Classico. Once again, no go.

This shouldn’t happen. A slightly more generous dimension on the connecting pegs and everything would fit. It’s hard to understand that a product that’s been around so long would suffer from this kind of a deficiency.

On the plus side, everything is well made, neatly packed, and the configurability of the system provides great flexibility.

But then again you have to put the thing together. I ordered three of these bad boys. Even with the application of optimized lean manufacturing methods, assembly was a several hour job requiring a rubber mallet (not included). My set up used 245 pegs. Since both ends of each peg need to be pounded in and an average of three mallet blows are needed to seat each end, this means that I swung the hammer no less than 1470 times in the course of the job.

As I write this, I’m nursing a nasty case of tennis elbow.

Perhaps a Scotch will dull the pain…

Customer Review: Good, practical wine rack
Looks good and built well. It takes a bit of time to put it together, but it’s kinda fun. Overall, very good value for money.

Store Wine – Wine For Dummies (For Dummies (Cooking))

Wineguy — Mon, 23 May 2011 08:00:16 +0000

Madoff Wines, Brown Liquid Help Raise $41530 for Ponzi Victims – Bloomberg

Telegraph.co.uk

Madoff Wines, Brown Liquid Help Raise $41530 for Ponzi Victims
Bloomberg
His wine collection, consisting of 58 lots, was sold at Morrell $ Co. Fine Wine Auctions on May 18. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Five of Bernard Madoff's former employees were sued by the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of …
DealBook: At This Event, the Drinks Are on Bernie MadoffNew York Times
Madoff's wine fetches $41530 for Ponzi victimsReuters
Big Bargains at Bernie Madoff's Wine AuctionCBS MoneyWatch.com (blog)
Toronto Star -IBTimes Hong Kong -Sydney Morning Herald
all 712 news articles »

Wine For Dummies (For Dummies (Cooking))
In Wine for Dummies, Mary Ewing-Mulligan teams up with hubby and fellow wine educator Ed McCarthy to guide us on an exhaustive, entertaining trip around the enological–that’s right, enological–world. Though clearly experts themselves (Ewing-Mulligan is one of a handful of Americans holding the rare title Master of Wine), the authors assure us that even the most basic knowledge will undermine the very notion of wine pretension. It’s as simple as this: “This wine is named for a grape variety. This wine is named for a geographical region. When they make this kind of wine, it goes into this kind of bottle.” And so on.

By providing the context in which to begin exploring wine, Wine for Dummies can easily become the send-off for a lifelong education. McCarthy and Mulligan deflate many of the wine snob’s attitudes; they assure us that most wine sold today is “good wine,” and that any further distinctions made about wine are ultimately subjective. The practical, jovial mentoring the authors provide encourages readers to chart their own course toward drinking great wine (although the authors naturally recommend dozens of their own favorites along the way). In later chapters, McCarthy and Mulligan delve into more serious topics such as investing in and cellaring wine. Even these discussions seem appropriate, given that you’ll probably find the allure of wine growing as its mystery subsides to the force of this superb introductory text. –Todd Gehman

Customer Review: Simple and exhaustive
This book is perfect for anybody who (like me before) does not know anything, or not that much about wine.

From the wine making to the etiquette, and going through the particular wine (champagne, sherry, port…), all the subjects to understand the basics are discussed.

I think the way the information is organized is also very well thought to teach about wine to … well ..dummies! It is very easy to read and well explained.
After having browsed this book, you will be able to understand much better about wine, and even to talk about it.

I was a little surprised not to find any topic about history, role in society etc… this book is just an introduction and just gives you the tool to enjoy a bottle of wine. Do not expect to be an expert about wine regarding economy or history.

My only criticism would be the way French, Italian and Spanish wine have been quickly treated. For instance, I would have liked to have a few names of good producers from Alsace… but instead I was advised to buy the French Wine for Dummies!!!

In a nutshell : a good buy and I will keep this book on my shelf to refresh my memory once in a while.

Customer Review: Great book for beginners!
This book is really helping me learn the basics of wine. It helps you know what to look for in a good wine, and to help direct you to wines you may like. I am really enjoying it!

Best Wine – The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine

Wineguy — Wed, 18 May 2011 12:00:21 +0000

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Madoff’s wine, minibar stash to be auctioned – Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Bernard Madoff’s wine collection hits the auction block on Wednesday, when bidders can scoop up everything from a case of fine Bordeaux to a 2-ounce bottle of vodka with a stained label. The online auction, to be run by Morrell

The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold.

In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux—one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose. Why wouldn’t Rodenstock reveal the exact location where it had been found? Was it part of a smuggled Nazi hoard? Or did his reticence conceal an even darker secret?

It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players—among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbent’s elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock.

Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing history of wine, complete with vivid accounts of subterranean European laboratories where old vintages are dated and of Jefferson’s colorful, wine-soaked days in France, where he literally drank up the culture.

Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaire’s Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction.

Customer Review: caveat emptor
as good as an Ian Rankin mystery! If you have ever bought or sold anything at auction, this is
required reading. It’s a great story…runs from Jefferson to the nuclear age without missing a beat!
Fraud? it’s there. Greed? it’s there. Ego? it’s there. Revenge? it’s there.
LIke a fine wine, it is very good upon entry, improves in the middle and finishes
long and memorable!

Customer Review: A Fool and His Money
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Most people experience this by the time they reach the age of ten. Whether it’s a minor annoyance like discovering that sea monkeys are just brine shrimp or a soul-crushing defeat like when the little girl down the street said she wanted to give you a kiss but ended up throwing rocks at you instead, almost everyone at some point in their childhood has this notion hammered home. Reading “The Billionaire’s Vinegar,” one comes away with the distinct impression that this was a lesson sorely missing from wine collectors’ young lives.

Benjamin Wallace’s books is ostensibly about a supposed 200 year old cache of wine that was purportedly owned by Thomas Jefferson. Yes, that Thomas Jefferson, of the Founding Fathers’ Thomas Jeffersons. How did everyone know these ancient bottles belonged to old TJ himself? Why, they had his initials engraved on them, of course! And the fact that they also had dates like “1784″ and “1787″ on them made everyone know that they weren’t owned by Theodore Jablowski (Harvard, class of 1982). Like a lot of old things, this cache of wine become highly sought after by individuals with too much money and way too much interest in centuries old fermented grape juice. It is in the exploration of this cast of characters where “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” shines.

The world of high end wine collecting is populated by figures with so-much-better-than-you names like Broadbent, Rodenstock, and Shanken. Americans with names like Forbes and Koch didn’t stand a chance getting involved with such people. According to Wallace, the good old days of wine collecting came to an end when the vulgar Americans entered the scene. Prior to that, apparently, the hobby was filled with proper European gentlemen playing in their wine cellars older than the New World, engaging in vertical and horizontal (what, no diagonal?) tastings, and generally living in an utopia. But once the Americans — all new money and no taste — got wind that wine was cool, well, the temptation became too great. Serpents entered this Eden with dollar signs in their eyes, and Paradise was lost. Wallace spends most of “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” on one of these alleged serpents: the discoverer of the Jefferson bottles, Hardy Rodenstock, nee Meinhard Görke. Chapter after chapter outlines how Rodenstock’s too-good-to-be-true finds were gobbled up by everyone from Malcolm Forbes (yes, daddy of that guy who ran for President so many years back) to industrialist Bill Koch (“pronounced like the soda”; yeah, I’d never heard of him, either). In the end, Forbes winds up storing his Jefferson bottle vertically under hot lights, causing the cork to take a swim in the elixir below it; Koch eventually gets the “if it sounds too good to be true” lesson and ends up spending five times what he paid for his Jefferson bottle engaging ex-FBI guys and nuclear physicists to make the German pay. We Americans may be uncouth, but we sure know how to party.

Interspersed amongst these chapters of Rodenstock’s alleged malfeasances are scenes of haughty oenophiles (wine connoisseurs — get yer mind out of the gutter) engaging in days-long tastings of wines that they say are awesome or gnarly or whatever oenophiles say to describe quality hooch. Sadly, Wallace makes the persuasive argument that a number of these wines are fake. Even worse, so many of these wine lovers have, over the years, tended to turn a blind eye to this rampant forgery. One scene near the end of the book describes how a panel of experts came together in the mid-1990s to develop a set of recommended best practices that the wine producers could have used to curtail forgers. Nothing came of it. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil: maybe this would make a more appropriate theme for this book.

In the end, “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” is less about the wine hobby than it is about the individuals that populate it and the self-delusional and even self-destructive tactics they use to play in it. As a reader, you’ll alternately want to slap these people and feel sorry for them. You’ll marvel at how Michael Broadbent ties his career to the shady Rodenstock, all the while cheering Bill Koch to uncover the the truth behind his collection. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” A valuable lesson that “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” shows you’re never too old to learn.

Wine – French Sausage & Beaujolais Wine Dry

Wineguy — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:00:07 +0000

Lloyd Webber wine collection sells for $5.6 mln – YAHOO!
HONG KONG (AFP) – British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wine collection sold for more than expected at a Hong Kong auction Saturday, raking in $5.6 million, one of several weekend sales in the fast-growing auction hub. Every one of 746 lots found a

French Sausage & Beaujolais Wine Dry
This is French Sausage & Beaujolais Wine Dry of Jean De France (France).

Wine online – Edmond Fallot Aged White Wine Vinegar from Burgundy (8.4 Fluid Ounce) by igourmet.com

Wineguy — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:00:13 +0000

How to start your own wine collection – Chicago Sun-Times

How to start your own wine collection
Chicago Sun-Times
For best results, give wine a few days to settle after the ride home from the wine store. People drink what they like and what they are familiar with, …

and more »

Drinkers Down Under switching from beer to wine – Reuters

Reuters

Drinkers Down Under switching from beer to wine
Reuters
Red wine made by Fosters is displayed on the shelf of a liquor store in Melbourne September 8, 2010. By Pauline Askin SYDNEY (Reuters) – The iconic image of …

and more »

Edmond Fallot Aged White Wine Vinegar from Burgundy (8.4 Fluid Ounce) by igourmet.com
The Fallot family of Beaune, France has enjoyed a worldwide reputation for exceptional quality since 1840. Based in Burgundy, they are traditionally known for their mustards, but they are also skilled makers of fine vinegars (which they integrate into their fabulous mustards). They pay the utmost attention to the wines and the origin of the wines they use. By choosing a fine wine they believe they achieve the finest vinegar. So, they have added vinegars obtained from AOC wines, in this case, Burgundy, to their standard white vinegar. The vinegar maker then ages it in oak vats where the vinegar will take on body and acquire the organoleptic qualities that make it a select vinegar.

Wine online – Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials: Professional Secrets to Buying, Storing, Serving, and Drinking Wine

Wineguy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 05:00:12 +0000

Shooter: Judge shouldn’t intrude on lives, businesses – University Daily
wonderfully smooth and full smoke, coupled with a lovely scotch or a nice glass of wine, life doesn’t get much better. For me, there’s something fantastically relaxing about sitting back with some friends at a nice bar, lighting up, and

Arts Council’s annual fundraiser is March 6 – Lahontan Valley News
the no-host bar and peruse the silent auction items. These include a variety of artworks, vacation getaways, culinary specialties and other items donated by local and regional artists, individuals and businesses. Dinner, including wine, will be

Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials: Professional Secrets to Buying, Storing, Serving, and Drinking Wine
From one of the world’s leading cooking schools, expert advice on buying, storing, serving, and selling wine for the everyday wine lover

Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials lets the everyday wine lover become a true wine connoisseur. Shedding light on a world as fascinating for its science and history as it is for its intricate etiquette, this guide unfolds the entire art and craft of wine in a beautifully designed and illustrated volume. With contributions from the world’s leading wine makers, sommeliers, and wine professionals, Le Cordon Bleu Wine Essentials provides commonsense advice on the everyday world of wine–from selecting, buying, and storing wine, to guidelines for tasting, appraising, ordering, and serving all varieties. The book also includes a behind-the-scenes look at winemaking, building a well-balanced wine collection, and practical advice on investing in wine.

Wine online – Cellaring Wine: A Complete Guide to Selecting, Building, and Managing Your Wine Collection

Wineguy — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:00:10 +0000

Melrose wine and beer retailers eyeing September openings – Melrose Free Press

Melrose wine and beer retailers eyeing September openings
Melrose Free Press
In May, the Melrose Liquor Licensing Commission approved retail licenses for Carl Caratozzolo and Jerry Pulaski, co-owners of Sweet Thoughts gift shop at …

Community Calendar – Norridge Harwood Heights News

Community Calendar
Norridge Harwood Heights News
Bid at the event's silent auction featuring restaurant gift certificates, sports items, photos and paintings, and wine merchandise and purchase raffle …
Community CalendarNiles Herald Spectator

all 8 news articles »

Now Jeff Cox, author of From Vines to Wines (89,000 copies in print) and a connoisseur well respected in wine circles, shows you how easy it is to have a wine cellar of your own.