Since I happened to be posting anyway I ought to add congratulations. I
won't repeat the "Origins" posting from July 2005 but mention a few other
things.

After the wine newsgroup (net.wines in the original naming) spun off from
the cooking newsgroup in February 1982 (both were planned together) it
carried probably most of the Internet's total wine-discussion traffic for
some 15 years. By 1988 for example, when a prominent US wine critic went
"online" (on one of several private online-services firms that tried for
some years to compete with the Internet) his writing already had been
reviewed and examined from many points of view on the actual Internet, on
the wine newsgroup -- including by members of the general public through
ISPs called at the time "public-access" services. There were regional
spin-off discussion fora (an Internet mailing list from 1985 and newsgroup
from 1987 in the San Francisco area, for example). By the middle 1990s,
people now associated with several wine-discussion Web sites surfaced first
on the Internet, here, before setting up separately. In those 25 years
thousands of contributors came, set the tone, went. (And millions of
repetitive Frequent Questions were Asked.)

To the first topic in 1982 (good-value red wines) and others on the same
topic since then, let me add another recommendation. Jadot's 2005
Beaujolais-Villages (USD $10 on sale at the BevMo chain in my region) has
that fuller, balsamic, tannic quality of meatier Gamays together with the
variety's signature fruit acid. It has enough tannin that it actually may
need a little time before drinking. Jadot's B-Vill hits this kind of weight
once every three or four years in my experience of this wine (which started
with the 1972 vintage I think) so I believe it's an unusually good year for
that specific label.

(The 05 Macon-Villages is not bad either -- its white counterpart -- nutty
tart European Chardonnay. Had a small glass while posting further on the
Magnetic story. That's my toast to the anniversary.)

Cheers! -- Max