What are you drinking right now?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Man you gotta pay closer attention, mixing up those three will bring nothing but pain.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Sure, you can do a nice gourd of mate with your mate. Handle knowledgeably. IOW, better than this level of wordplay.

[Diaphone Jim]

The wine I pulled at random from my stash this week was a 1990 Zinfandel from Greenwood Ridge Vineyards in Philo, Mendocino County, California.
The winery is in the Anderson Valley, but the grapes came from old vines in the Alexander Valley, Sonoma County.
It has great facility and tasting room and makes really nice wine, especially late harvest ones.
For many years, it also has hosted the World Wine Tasting Championships which demand of both amateur and professional noses and palates knowledge of varieties, appellations, vintages and even individual wineries.
This wine had a dry cork and little sediment.
The nose and flavors were very agreeable, but not outstanding: a quite nice experience in total. It was the right time, or maybe a little late, to enjoy it.

[Griff]

It's pretty cool that you're doing this DJ. I imagine it is a great way to relive some places and moments.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

We're tending to wrestle crumbled corks, worse luck. Even with laid-down bottles.

[Diaphone Jim]

This week's lucky pick was from a small local winery: Frey Vineyards of Redwood Valley.
They may have been California's first 100% organic producer and the whole Frey family were involved at the remote ranch.
The wine was a 1984 Mendocino appellation Cabernet Sauvignon which the label promised would improve for 2 to 3 years. Instead I found it very enjoyable at 36.
The winery is slowly recovering from almost total destruction in the 2018 fires that raged around their valley and mine.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Reed's All Natural Jamaican Style Ginger Ale. Has the faintly astringent bite of the Reed's house style. How they determine, per the label, that there are indeed 17 grams fresh ginger for each bottle I'm not sure. Long division?

Down at the market, you can hear
Ladies cry out while on their heads they bear
Aki rice, salt fish are nice
And the rum is fine, any time of year

[Dude111]

Drinking some chocolate Milk

[BigV]

Bourbon, neat.

[Griff]

Coffee and kale/banana/berry smoothie, making up for wing night.

[Gravdigr]

Ginger ale, nectar of the Gods.

[BigV]

jfc, welcome back man.

[Gravdigr]

I thank you.[/hattip]

[Diaphone Jim]

My son-in-law brought me some fresh caught ocean fish over the past month and they paired better with fresh bought white wines than with elderly reds.
I did pull a few of the latter from their hiding place in the cabinet.
One was a 1985 Milano Cabernet Sauvignon from Sonoma County grapes, even though the Winery is the furthest one south in Mendocino County.
This small winery has been in production since the '70's and has a friendly tasting room on a two lane section of US 101 south of Hopland; the turn-in northbound is a white knuckle one with the southbound one much safer.
The wine was in good shape and tasty, but surprisingly similar to the next victim, a 1985 Sirah-Syrah from Preston Vineyards in the Dry Creek Valley near Healdsburg in Sonoma County.
It was a blend of 56% Petite Syrah and 46% Sirah. The winery still makes this Rhone variety blend but varies the mix.
I guess the similarity we found between these two very different wines comes from the waning of the influence their source fruit.
The corks I am encountering have benefited from storing the bottles on their sides for 30+ years, keeping them from drying out. They are fragile, however, and I am trying different extraction methods to keep particles from the wine; so far a really fine strainer has been necessary.

[sexobon]

I just use a paper coffee filter in a funnel when pouring vintage port from bottle to decanter. They're thin: so, they don't absorb much.

I suppose you could use a surgical mask; but, stay away from N95s. They absorb too much wine and are difficult to wring out.