Let's all get high...ly rated!

Hello? *thump, thump* is this thing on?

Ladies, and Gentleman, coming at you, for ONE BLOG ONLY... you know him, you love him, you have to listen to him rant on facebook and in emails, and now he's taking over the CWT blog for the week:  Manager of Personal Wine Cellar-- Mr. Ernie O. Darrah!

It isn't obvious that I write my own press, is it?

Lyssa was feeling a bit under the weather, so I thought I'd pitch in.  This week, breaking from the norm, we'll talk about FIVE WINES!  But don't fear, it's going to be painless.  Here we go.

By now, I'm sure most (if not all of you) have visited Personal Wine Cellar, and seen this:

This is the PWC Highly Rated Wine section.  It's at the very back of the store, so if you've never ventured all the way in, you may have missed it.

"What is a Highly Rated Wine?" you may ask.  Well, that's any wine that's been reviewed and rated by one of several different accrediting publications:  magazines such as Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate, and consumer groups such as The Beverage Testing Institute just to name a few.  These organizations taste and analyze the wine, and provide not only a description, but also a score (out of 100 points) to rate the wine.  Naturally the higher the score the better the wine.  And while there is no absolute standard on the grading scale, scores from different sources on the same wine generally tend to be within a point or two of one another.  This can be attributed to differences in the parties tasting, the lot that the wine came from, or many other factors.  While it is in no way exact, the score is a very good barometer of a quality, but not the taste of a wine.  You can give a wine a good score based on it's flavors for what it is, and still not like the wine, so the descriptions on them become as valuable as the scores.

In the PWC Highly Rated section, you may notice this little guy:

This section is for the picks of the good employees of the store.  Each is selected by a member of the staff, and they give their notes to me.  I then taste it (if I haven't--for some odd reason--tried it already) and then I give it a write up and a score based on the training I received as a total drunkard and my ability to count to 100.  That's a joke.  Everyone know's I cant count to 100 while I'm drunk.

Here's a quick rundown of the wines we currently have in our Employee pics:

And we start with our Mistress of the Blogisphere... the Casual Wine Taster herself!

 

A perennial favorite of ours, the Rkats finds it's way into our house for just about every gathering, dinner, or assorted function we can shoe-horn it into. 

Another absolutely loverly selection, my rating was recently justified when Wine Spectator also graced the 2011 Belle Glos Meiomi Pinot Noir with a 92 point score. (2011 vintage now in stock, image right is out of date).

In case you were wondering:  "field blend" is a process whereby the different varietals are crushed and fermented together, instead of being made as separate wines and then blended at a later date.

On a trip to to the finger lakes, we found this little winery tucked away in Interlaken.  If you're ever near there, go and have their wines which are great, and eat at their cafe.  They smoke their own meats and cheeses, so order the Cuban sandwich.  And have their Bourbon Pecan Pie.

Probably my favorite wine in the store, I recommend "Donny Ro" to just about anyone that is looking for a big and hearty wine.  I've had this wine every vintage for nearly a decade, and it's always been fantastic.  



So, I hope you've enjoyed this episode A Hack Attempts a Blog.  Please don't let this taint your opinion of this blog... She's really much better at this then I am.