2005 St. Jean du Barroux Cotes du Ventoux L'Oligocene $14.99

(It's a RHONE)

Let's take a wine with a horrible name from an obscure appellation and try to sell a bunch of it! From the outside looking in it sounds like a horrible business plan. But to us it's par for the course, especially when the wine we're offering is available at a monster discount!

This wine is awesome, encapsulating all that is right about cool climate, high elevation Grenache from the Ventoux, an area that doesn't get enough respect even though folks like St. Jean du Barroux and Pesquié are making great wines from this dirt. It has more character, class and ageability than most 'little' wines from the southern Rhone, it's appeal more like a great Chateauneuf du Pape from the northern part of the sector. It was a heckuva deal at its inital $25-$30 retail, really a flashy Chateauneuf look-alike. But at $14.99, with bottle age, from an outstanding vintage, this wine is an absolute must-have for Rhone aficionados, or anyone else for that matter. Just an engaging bottle of red wine. Buy Now from Winex.com

Yo Leprechauns, Happy St. Paddy's Day

The Bordeaux Wine Council aka Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux, in partnership with SOPEXA USA (Food and Wines from France), presented the 2010 Selection of 100 Classic, Contemporary, Affordable wines this last Monday at the Skirball. If you think that info is daunting, now imagine a beautiful room full of representatives of 100 wines from France and all those bottles waiting to be tasted.

I joined Tristen Beamon, wine buyer for the Wine Exchange in Orange and co-host of the new TV series, "Wine Geeks in Paradise" in a valiant attempt at accommodating all the chateau reps. Our first stops were along the tables with barrel samples of the Primeurs 2009 vintage from thirty top Bordeaux producers. This is where a palate schooled in wine tasting shows its stuff as you're tasting are directly from the barrels the rest of the vintage is aging in. So knowing what a great wine will taste like when tasting it mid-development is the trick, and it's one that Tristen is well acquainted. These wines will be offered in "Futures" sales starting late spring 2011 and are at least 3 years from being released

Among the presenters was renowned winemaker/ consultant Alain Raynaud, sharing barrel samples from Chateau La Fleur de Gay 2009. The consesus appears to be among most wine experts that the 2009 vintage promises to be one of great ones in recent times. Tristen found many if not most of the barrel samplings to be extraordinarily promising.

The largest part of the floor was dedicated to 100 wines that retail from $8 to $35. These were selected from 400 wines nominated by importers across the U.S., the 100 picked by a expert and independent jury in blind tastings. French winemakers acknowledging the market today have been reacting to their wine drinkers taste by creating more accessible wines. Blending both the heritage of French wine with modern viticulture and producing ready-to-enjoy wines for the dinner table.

The increasing diversity and availability of quality wines, is good news for us wine drinkers. Lots a great wine being made this side of the pond, this side of the U.S. and competition is the high tide that floats all boats, this time in a sea of fine wine. Ahhh.... there's were I want to sail off into the sunset.

Among the 2009 barrel tastings to make note of were Clos L'Eglise, Barde Haut, La Dauphine, Fleur Cardinale, La Fleur de Bouard, La Fleur de Gay, La Vieille Cure, Moulin Haut-Laroque, Fonplegade,
Roi Valentin, and Clos de Jacobins.

Of the bottled wines, the 2006 Montviel and 2005 Reignac were notable.

Since we're people first, wine drinkers second, responding to disasters as in Haiti and Chile with humanitarian help is job one. As a California native, I've first hand experience of what it's like when the ground rocks and rolls, so when I hear about shakers hitting 7.0 and 8.8 on the Richter scale, Haiti and Chile respectfully, the hair on the back of my neck jumps up! Living 10 miles from the 6.4 Northridge Quake epicenter, let me tell you ... you don't want to experience any thing greater. So how do you help? Money always good. The Red Cross and such staunchly legit groups are the place for cash. For Haiti and beyond, I like a group called Soles4Souls that collects good shoes for folks in need across the world. (Who doesn't have at least one pair of sport shoes you never wear?)

Chile has a much stronger government infrastructure and was considerably more prepared, so even with a monster 8.8 earthquake, they are doing, well... better than Haiti and international help appears to be on board. The Chilean wine industry was hit hard, losing hundreds of thousands of liters in broken tanks, etc. Fortunately it seems that overall wine losses are under 15% of their yearly output and although that's enough for a nasty smack down, it does open a wonderful way for us to help.

Let's give their wine biz and national economy a nice jolt of U.S. marketing power, ... GO OUT AND BUY SOME CHILEAN WINE TONIGHT!

Its not hard to find good Chilean wine even at your supermarket and certainly your favorite wine seller can make numerous suggestions. So grab those Nikes you never wear, locate a drop off near you by checking the Soles4Souls website, and head for the wine store.

A little exercise, wine buying and helping the world in one little trip out? Sweet.

LOS VASCOS 2007 RESERVE CABERNET $12.99 (from Chile!)

Hard to believe it has been almost 20 years since the Domaines Barons de Rothschild group took the bull by the horns and completely renovated this Colchagua Valley estate in Chile. Fine wine takes time to build from scratch, and two decades in we are seeing some impressive results. ‘Pauillac in Chile’ is not too crazy a concept, especially with the gang at Lafite helping to make the wine. Elegant, refined, there are bigger Cabs from Chile right now (think Marques de Casa Concha) but you’ll find none more polished and classy than this little number from Los Vascos. Buy Now from Winex.com

Support Chile's economy, Drink wine. That's my kind of politics!