<p>Oh boy…I need a drink.</p>
<p>EPTR - Here’s a nice Chilean red. Not too expensive, and the shop will deliver (for a small fee of course).</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sherry-lehmann.com/wine/B0166[/url]”>http://www.sherry-lehmann.com/wine/B0166</a></p>
<p>Thanks, but I haven’t had red wine since my eighteenth birthday when I drank a quart of Riunite Red. Now there’s a memorable wine! And it has a convenient twist off cap!</p>
<p>No dinner, alas - just a gift bottle. It’s D’s holiday gift to her music teacher.</p>
<p>^^ I heard a rumor that the only difference between Riunite Red and Riunite White is a bit of red dye #2. Probably just a rumor … some ne’er do well sowing dissension.</p>
<p>White wine … how about this one? (The shop doesn’t deliver after 8:00 PM, so act fast!)
<a href=“http://www.sherry-lehmann.com/wine/A7740[/url]”>http://www.sherry-lehmann.com/wine/A7740</a></p>
<p>At the moment, I’m drinking a glass of Two Buck Chuck Merlot. But I still say go to a nice wine store and get a nice red, preferably NOT california (yawn), unless you have inside knowledge of some great, unknown winery.</p>
<p>A bottle of good port would not go amiss. For $40, you could find an actual vintage.</p>
<p>If it is a gift to a music teacher, then Etude wines could fit the bill. 
Both Etude Pinots are actually very good.
[Etude</a> Wines: Pinot Noir is the Soul](<a href=“http://www.princeofpinot.com/article/624/]Etude”>Etude Wines: Pinot Noir is the Soul | The PinotFile: Volume 7, Issue 12)</p>
<p>(Or you can get her/him a bottle of Adytum Mead - the Adytum Cellars meadery is run by the husband of a professional flutist/music teacher.
[About</a> Us | Adytum Cellars](<a href=“http://adytumcellars.com/about-us/]About”>http://adytumcellars.com/about-us/)
:))</p>
<p>its not red #2, newhope, because red #2 is actually red.
You need, beet extract, to make the purple found in red wine. :)</p>
<p>I’m in the group that doesn’t equate champagne with wine. If someone told me they were bringing wine, but brought champagne instead, I would think that odd. I like champagne, but my wine expert friends aren’t crazy about it and never serve it - even for celebrations. </p>
<p>I would probably take a bottle of red, but it could be anything from a Malbec to a Syrah. I like Pinot Noir, Cab and Chianti too. Of course, I also like Gewurztraminer with certain meals. I think there are some great California wines. I got over my St. Emilion fetish some years ago.</p>
<p>I really am starting to wonder what “wine expert” means to the rest of the US. Granted, most Champagne sold in the states is pretty bad, but it’s still made from fermented grapes and the very best inexpensive California wines generally don’t travel more than a seven hundred miles from home… but jeeeeeeeeeeez. There are “some” great California wines? . Some? And Consolation —“yawn”?? I am hurt to the core. I am off to Healdsburg next week where I will drown my sorrows with some appropriate (California-YAWN) Pinots and maybe a Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs just to spite the anti-sparkling wine crowd.</p>
<p>I actually look for wines with a twist off cap since I am the only wine drinker in the house & I like to have a couple glasses before it goes off.</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with a twist off cap…if the wine inside is good. However,good vintages, appropriate for saving and aging might have issues getting old gracefully with a metal cap. And in our house…wine NEVER ages. It tends to disappear mysteriously.</p>
<p>[Let’s</a> Do the Twist | Food & Wine](<a href=“http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/lets-do-the-twist]Let’s”>http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/lets-do-the-twist)</p>
<p>musica, I will drink whatever CA wine Consolation leaves untouched. DH and I are huge fans of the Napa Valley reds. We prefer to come to the source. 
</p>
<p>Sorry, I’m not much a champagne drinker, and I still think it is in a class of its own.
If we have to use a car comparison, I’d say it is maybe like a Tesla 
Not for everyone.</p>
<p>For ice wine, you have to travel to our neck of the woods, if Germany is too far away. Napa Valley is too warm for iced grapes.</p>
<p>Oh, yes, the twist caps are great. And so are synthetic corks. :)</p>
<p>Synthetic corks are good I agree. But I don’t drink wine frequently enough to remember what I like & what was nasty. Price seems to have little correlation to my taste buds.
I do try & drink local though.</p>
<p>I know I mentioned Vine Talk already, but I didn’t realize there is a summary of the “winners” from season one. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vinetalk.com/vine-talk-season-one-favorite-wines/[/url]”>http://www.vinetalk.com/vine-talk-season-one-favorite-wines/</a></p>
<p>You can see which wines were in the running for each episode too. It was interesting that sometimes the cheaper wines won.</p>
<p>musicamusica, I misspoke. I believe there are many excellent California wines. I used the term “some” very loosely. I choose mostly California wines. I spent a week touring wineries in Sonoma for my honeymoon back in the 80s and am still drawn to wines from there. We spent a couple of days in Healdsburg and Geyserville and visited several wonderful wineries in the Russian River Valley. </p>
<p>Of course, I know that champagne is a type of wine, but the two are not interchangeable. If a friend asked me to bring a bottle of wine to dinner, they would be surprised if I brought champagne. I enjoy champagne, but I would not take a bottle to my friends who practically live for wine and have no taste for champagne.They are a great source of information and I am always nervous about taking a bottle of wine to their home. Fortunately, a gentleman who works at the local wine shop has never steered me wrong in helping me make a choice.</p>
<p>After having spent a bit of time in Epernay and Rheims, I guess I tend to bristle a bit when fantastic sparkling wines are dissed by “experts”. You are all invited over to my house for lobster crepes finished with a cocoa (mole)sauce and rinsed down with Champagne. I promise I will change your mind</p>
<p>Sounds wonderful and you wouldn’t have to change my mind. As I said, I enjoy sparkling, whether made in the m</p>
<p>Corked or screwed? From my limited test, a screw top wine is not a wine you want to store for any period of time…i have found the wines with screw tops have a funny taste when stored,but are perfectly fine for current consumption…</p>
<p>Sorry I am late to this thread, but I have a couple of concrete recommendations.</p>
<p>We are generally a red-wine family, and a dry red wine family, but we like gewurtztraminers – the complexity and spiciness offset the sweetness, and they don’t seem as inconsequential as lighter whites. Anyway, a few weeks ago I paid $27.50/bottle in NY state for a 2007 Zind Humbrecht Gewurtztraminer Rangen Clos St. Urbain. We drank a bottle over the weekend and it was superb. Zind Humbrecht has six or seven different gewurtz labels that it uses, for different vineyards, but as a brand it is very, very reliable, and it should be recognized as such by any serious wine person.</p>
<p>$20-40 is on the low side for any currently drinkable, high-quality California, French, or Italian reds, but you can get some great Portugese or Spanish wines in that range. (Probably Argentina or Chile as well, but I don’t know the precise labels much.) One wine we have really loved is Fonseca’s Periquita Classico, which only gets made in great years. (The regular Periquita, and the Periquita Reserva, are not as good. Some other winemakers sell Periquita Classicos, but I have never tried one; Fonseca invented this particular wine in the 19th Century.) I think the last vintage made was 2004, which is pretty perfect to drink now. I have seen it advertised online for about $25/bottle.</p>