Not a great image here, but I wanted to talk about the wine on the left. The 2005 Chateau Haut-Piquat from Lussac Saint-Emilion.
It is 65% merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 10% Cab Franc. This wine retails just under $20 dollars.
I bought a case for the house for special occasions. You know, like when we are entertaining or for fancy dinner nights. So far I've had a bottle every night the last three nights and, um, we had pizza. In our sweatpants. In front of the t.v. Not exactly special, right?
Anyway, it's from that 2005 vintage that was so good, and it's also one of those right bank wines that's ready to drink now. So it looks like that's exactly what we're doing. Drinking it all now!

Here we go...I found a better image of the label. Very traditional label, very pretty.

Nice ripe fruit, perfect amount of tannin. Love this little wine.

A Wine Reps Very Messy Home Office

This is my very messy home office that I share with my computer programmer husband. You can see the wine section on one side, and Jim's computer books on the other. I'm not sure which weighs more. Those computer books are huge!!!


Some of the wines are samples that I will show in the marketplace. And some of it is wine for the house. Right now, there's a bunch on the floor, which drives me nuts. These Ikea shelves hold a surprising amount of wine. Like a case and a half per cubby. Jim anchored them to the wall and they work pretty well.

I will post a picture when it is all cleaned up and looking good. I like that I can see my wine from the kitchen and hallway. I know that's kind of weird, but I like how wine bottles look. I love the different shapes of the bottles and the labels of course. Right now there are probably about 300 bottles in the office, or about 25 cases. I sell wines from all over the world, but we really love Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone, and Champagne. We go on kicks though. We seem to be drinking a lot of Primitivo and Sangiovese from Italy lately. And New World stuff...Jim loves malbec from Argentina. Oh...and last summer we were drinking lots of Spanish wine. What can I say? We drink it all.

Petit Chateaux, or the "little houses" in Bordeaux

So the wines from my last post are called Petit Chateaux. The tiny half bottles behind the giant cat. These are the inexpensive wines from Bordeaux that can be really terrific values. To give you some perspective, Bordeaux is the largest AOC (appellation controlled wine region) in France, with something like 10 thousand producers. They churn out around 660 million bottles of wine, mostly red, a year. In a good vintage, lots of good wine is produced and ready to drink now. The nice part about Bordeaux is that you can also hold onto it for like five or so years. Even the cheap stuff. (In a good vintage) Not that it lasts in our house for that long, but more on that later.
So, let's see. The 2009 Bordeaux started to arrive here in the U.S.A. in October of 2010. I started to show them in Delaware in September. Wine buyers tend to love these wines. because they are quite simply, cheap and really good. As a wine rep, I'm really not supposed to use the term cheap. I'm supposed to say "good value" during a sale. One of my favorite things in the world is tasting an account on an inexpensive, high quality Bordeaux. First, they swirl and sniff the wine. The eyebrows go up in surprise. Oooh. Nice. Lots going on here, I see. We chat about the kids, how's business, any trips planned? Then they taste, spit, take a look at the bottle. I can see they like what they are tasting. I tell them whatever info I have on the producer, region, grapes used. Then...they ask me, how much? This is my favorite part. When I show them a Bordeaux that will retail for between $10 and $15 dollars, they smile. They order wine for the shop/restaurant. I order wine for the house. Everyone is happy.

Bordeaux, Bordeaux, it's off to work I go...

This is Lily. She is helping me get ready for work on Monday. All of those little bottles behind her are from Bordeaux. They are from the fabulous 2009 vintage. I will be taking them to restaurants and wine shops all week so that my buyers can decide which wines to carry.
Lots has been said about the 2009 vintage. Check out the following comments from the wine critics:

"The finest vintage I have tasted in 32 years of covering Bordeaux. 2009!!!" 2009 may turn out to be historic." Robert Parker

"In France's most famous wine region, Bordeaux, Some people are touting the 2009 vintage as the mother of great modern vintages." James Suckling

I will let you know which ones are my favorites, and the ones my buyers liked.