I just realized when I wrote up Monday's SOBER tasting, I left out the
2002 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Spatlese John served as we waited
for stragglers to arrive. No real notes, but I remember the wine as
delightful. Just a delicious open Riesling, peaches and citrus over a
solid mineral base. Good but not extreme acidity, perfect apertif
(though certainly "serious" enough to be a star at dinner). A-/B+

Last night Betsy made a fresh spinach tagliatelle with beef ragu.
Recipe for the sauce called for red wine, she used a cup of the 2006
Brun (Domaine des Terres Dorees) "L'Ancien" Beaujolais, and then we
had the wine with dinner. Lovely balanced Gamay, floral with clean
dark cherry fruit. Good acidity, light ripe tannins, good length. B+

On another forum there was a long discussion about heat damage. There
was some disagreement over whether one can reliably spot milder heat
damage (no popping corks or leaking). Long story, but end is that a
few of us decided to run a rather slapdash experiment. The goal is to
see what differences we see in bottles that saw warm but not hot
storage, and ones from a cool cellar.

Yesterday I stuck one bottle each of:
2006 Brun L'Ancien Beaujolais ( wine listed in this note)
2004 Ch,. Picque Caillou (Pessac-Leognan)
2006 La Vieille Ferme rouge
on top of a kitchen cabinet. Another bottle of each is residing in my
cellar. On or around April 1, 2010, I plan on having a dinner party
and serving the 6 bottles blind, to see what people think (and then
we'll open some more serious stuff).

Others (including Mark Lipton) are doing the same. We don't have
enough people to make this a statistically relevant study (and I don't
have the wealth to risk dozens of bottles). But if you would like to
"play", just find a pair of wines (or several pair) and put one in an
uncontrolled enviroment. I'd avoid attics or garages where temp might
hit 100, likely to obviously compromise seal and we know a popped cork
will not be drinkable. More data the better!

cheers, Dale


Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent
wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't
drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no
promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency

DaleW wrote:

Yesterday I stuck one bottle each of:
2006 Brun L'Ancien Beaujolais ( wine listed in this note)
2004 Ch,. Picque Caillou (Pessac-Leognan)
2006 La Vieille Ferme rouge
on top of a kitchen cabinet. Another bottle of each is residing in my
cellar. On or around April 1, 2010, I plan on having a dinner party
and serving the 6 bottles blind, to see what people think (and then
we'll open some more serious stuff).

And I've put a bottle each of
2005 Torres Sangre de Toro
2005 Perrrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone
NV Gruet Brut Blanc de Noirs (375 ml)

in an upstairs closet and in my passively cooled cellar. We're going to
open them up and compare them starting on April Fools Day, 2010. All
are welcome to play along.

Mark Lipton

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