What I Drank With Dinner (WIDWD) When buying wine at retail, I frequently shop at Esquin Wine Merchants, where one of the better selections of Oregon wines can be found here in Seattle. A while back I was in the pinot noir aisle when Jerry appeared to help me out with my shopping. Jerry, who retired from Esquin last December, has played a key role in steering me to new discoveries over the years, with this shopping trip being no exception. After asking Jerry what was drinking well in the 2005 Oregon pinot noir line up, he promptly reached...

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Posted by Thad at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I couldn't finish this book. I was halfway through and just couldn't bring myself to reading any more pages detailing the dysfunction of the Mondavi family. The sibling rivalries, the raw greed, the marital affairs, and the suffering children who repeated this dysfunctional cycle across several generations. What a sad, pitiful tale Julia Flynn Siler has crafted in "The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty". If you can get past Siler's overlapping sequence of events from chapter to chapter, you'll find a story that leaves little to be desired. The book clearly validates...

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Posted by Thad at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week I received an email from the folks at Northwest Palate magazine, informing me that I had won a prize drawing for completing their annual reader survey. The prize? A mixed case of Pacific Northwest wine, which arrived at my doorstep today. Besides the thrill of actually winning something, I was even more excited about getting a case of wine. But what made this even more exciting was not knowing what wine I had won. Seeing the box, I felt like a kid on Christmas morning who couldn't wait to tear open my gift. Here's what was inside: •...

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Posted by Thad at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

What I Drank With Dinner (WIDWD) Boy, did this L'Ecole Nº 41 wine live up to its label, which states, "The fruit for our Seven Hills Vineyard Estate Syrah was harvested ultra-ripe, resulting in a dark, massive and dense wine." It certainly was a big, extracted wine with dark cherry fruit, providing a hearty wine on a cold winter night. Even still, it paired well with the grilled filet mignon we had last night with roasted fennel, red onions and carrots along with onion rings. The kosher salt and ground pepper seasoned free range beef was served with a chipotle...

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Posted by Thad at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)