Shane's Ruminations on Three Years of Blogging

We have been blogging our wines notes for three years. My tastes have radically changed over time and I’m sure they will continue to change. For now, here is a list of my top tier wines, my second tier wines and some thoughts and ruminations on other varietals and styles.

Top Tier

German Riesling – This is absolutely my favorite style of wine. German Rieslings have everything I am looking for in a wine: complexity, pronounced flavors and good minerality. The sweetness of the upper pradikats is a bonus, and I can think of no other type of wine that produces so many truly great wines for under $40. I could almost exclusively drink German Riesling.

Rhones (More specifically, Cotes du Rhones and Gigondas) – These are my favorite reds. As with German Rieslings, they are flavorful and inexpensive. Most of them don’t have the complexity of a true world class wine, but their intense flavors keep my palate happy. We rarely encounter a bad Rhone.

Italian Wines – We like practically every Italian wine we drink. We primarily drink Dolcetto, Montepulicano (the varietal) and Barbera. However, we also like Amarone, Valpolicella, Vin Santo, Primitivo, Prosecco, Pinot Grigio, San Gimigiano, Moscato d’Asti and Barolo. I am not afraid to purchase almost any wine from Italy, although I do have to watch out for the few that are overoaked (The Gaja Gromis (Barolo) is a great example of an overoaked Italian wine). Most of the Italian wines are flavorful, a bit funky and great values.

Second Tier

Kunde (American individualism doesn’t necessarily lead to regional styles. Therefore, for America, I think it is more appropriate to name wineries rather than regions)
Tablas Creek
Nickel and Nickel Chardonnays
Chablis (Very close to moving up to the first tier)
New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough)
Vouvray
LBV Ports (especially Dow)
Douro Table Wines (although less so the more I drink them. I have had too many overoaked wines – they are on the borderline of being dropped from the second tier)


I find most American Pinot Noir to be overextracted. Burgundies and Bordeaux usually just taste like the winemaker screwed up – he couldn’t have possibly have meant for the wine to taste that way, could he? I’m not a Cabernet Sauvignon fan either. I’m not sure why I don’t like Cabs but I do know that their palate just doesn’t excite me. Zins are pretty much a disaster. For every good one, there are at least a dozen undrinkable ones. I’m not a fan of Champagne or sparkling wine – I can’t get past the yeastiness. So far, I have not liked Aussie wines. It just always tastes like there is something fundamentally wrong with them. I used to really like Spanish and Chilean wines but have recently found too many of them overaked. Lastly, I do like a good Merlot although I haven’t found many.