Turning leaf (wine?)
 

Why do you just send us Turning Leaf ?

Do you just keep the best for yourselves or what ?

I am so sorry about that. That's horrible. You really should try, say, some of the Ridge Zinfandels.

On the other hand if they finally ship it in refrigerated containers, maybe it is better than some of the Bordeaux I've had which was burnt in the bottle. Not your fault, it's the importers' fault, but some premier cru isn't so premier after taking a boat across the Atlantic in summer.

Undertoad , I cannot tell you how delighted I am to have received this message . I am human enough not to like (deserved ?) pre-emptive head-butts from people I like .

I shall be looking out for the Ridge Zinfandels , and I would be grateful for any other oenological advice to do with your neck of the woods .

Anna .

Never let it be said that I do not know who is the boss ( within the limited and yet glorious parameters I have already chosen to dwell upon )

I'm the boss of no man or woman. I merely keep the place running. You needn't be nice to me. I will accept any number of return head-butts with no threat of carding. All I ask is that, if you find the place becomes important to you, make a donation to it.

I say Zinfandel because it is one of the truly American grapes. I leave out the inferior American varietals and crosses such as Catawba, Niagara, Concord, Cayuga White. There are some fine examples of wines made from these grapes, but also some of the worst wine I've ever tasted. It's interesting that grapes lived natively in North America before Europeans arrived. None of those "pure" grape lines make much good wine, but their rootstock proved valuable, because they are hardy and resistant to phylloxera. Americans will be familiar with Concord, because here it is "the grape jelly grape", high in sugar content and will grow in cold climates.

Zinfandel is considered natively American, and nobody knows exactly where it came from, but it is likely to be a hybrid based on either an Italian or a Croatian grape. Its wine tends to be big, and generally more spicy/peppery. Ridge has the best reputation amongst those wineries that make a Zinfandel.

Thank you Undertoad . I am thinking about phylloxera right now . I know that after the huge phylloxera tragedy of the last century in France , rootstock was brought into France from North America .
A lot of fine French wine is based on North-American rootstock . I do not know how much . It would be interesting to find that out .

P.S. I know that the Australians prize their wine as being from European pre-phylloxera vines .

Hell, I know a dog that pushes him around. :D
Having strong opinions does not make someone a bully. Not allowing disagreement with those opinions, does. UT has never been a bully.

We have a lot of wild vines here. The growth this year has been amazing, I guess because it has been so wet? If I remember correctly, this much rain is not good for the fruit of the domesticated varieties. As far as my knowlege of wines, I drink what I'm told to. :)

It's interesting, a lot of rain late in the season is bad for a vintage because the grapes will take on too much water and lead to a thinner juice. I know they prefer a long hot summer.

May you all be blessed with drinking a Gerwutztraminer Vendanges Tardives to prove Undertoad's point .

Recently the state of California named Zinfindel the official state wine variety because it is native to this area. There was a lot of argument about this since Cabernet is considered better.

Wineries in California produce wine at all different levels of quality. I think of Turning Leaf as the stuff you quick pick up at 7-11 (convenience store).

The following California vineyards are good:

Rodney Strong
Kunde
Rosenblum
DeLoach
Kendall Jackson

By coincidence, Jackie and I just had the Rodney Strong 2002 Cab Saturday night and it was awesome.

The K/J Chard is like our "house white" around here.

My parents just came back from NC with some pretty good stuff. They had a lot of fun, the real reason they went.
I'm a Super Tuscan man myself.

Depends which Tuscan wine , Ridgeplate . We rented a house in Siena a few years ago , complete with rustic , ancient peasant gardener . He brought us some of his own wine and it was bloody awful . Positively hellish . It ended up down the drain .

No wonder Dante wrote the Inferno . At the time , he was probably under the baleful influence of that gardener's ancestors' wine .