M. Senegor

Among my many hobbies two prominent ones are cycling and wine. It occurred to me recently that the most irritating recurrent nuisance in each have the same psycological effects on me: in cycling it's flats, in wine corked bottles. These appear seemingly out of nowhwere when you least expect it, and they impose a sudden, obligatory stop to your momentum. My first impulse is always, "shiit!", before I begin readjusting. With flats you have to delay your ride, and sometimes that of your mates, to change the tire, a slow and cumbersome process for me. Sometimes the whole ride gets[...]

Karl and Mary Wolf, a friendly couple who are also colleagues showed me a bottle of wine they received as a gift recently, a 1997 Jarvis Cabarnet Sauvignon. They wanted my opinion on how good I thought this was. While I knew nothing about the particular vintage, I certainly had an opinion on the winery, and it has to be prefaced with the "new" style of visiting the touristy California Wine Country.You see, in the old days (1980's and early '90's) when tastings were totally free or really cheap, what we used to do was get in the car and[...]

In my wine tasting group Silver Oak Cabarnet Sauvignons are much disliked. These wines are viewed as a mid-price luxury for the masses, which they are, but undeserving of their status because they are so heavily laden with American oak. I have a very small stash of Silver Oak and have brought it to our Friday night tastings on occasion only to encounter scorn from the group. Thus I have become a closeted drinker of this wine, at home, alone with Julie my wife. Julie has actually taken quite a liking to them. She doesn't mind all that American Oak,[...]

Several Southern Rhone wines have appeared in our Friday night blind tasting from the 98 vintage. At first they were all Chateauneuf du Pape's from Vieux Telegraph. These came along over a period of 6 weeks or so from different collections. The wine had a very distinct quality that we all found likeable but many might consider a defect. It had a very strong "mouvedre rusticity", usually found in the finish in such wines, and much less pronounced. These 98's had them starting in mid palate and overstated. It almost tasted "mediciny", like iodine.I was quite surprised this past friday[...]

Hi there, for everyone on the blogosphereAfter 2 years of blogging with a local newspaper about wine, I am now on my own. No more editors. Hurray! I can say whatever I want without worrying about reader reaction. Wow! What a feeling of freedom.Let me start with something I have wanted to state for a long time, but could not. Lodi wines, by and large suck! Too ripe, too overoaked. They all taste alike; it's impossible to distinguish varietals. I live in the Lodi appellation, and it is most unfortunate that the wines are so undrinkably huge.However they are much[...]