by Ethan Johnson
December 12, 2008

It's either a perk or an occupational hazard, but I must sample all sorts of beers and wines in order to perform my beer/wine store duties to any degree of competence. That is, I drink them at night, after work, and come back the following day better equipped to speak credibly about the products. I seem to have a speed limit of up to 2 beers per day, unless I am really living on the edge. Here are the beers of November once I had the brilliant idea to keep notes about each one. Due to the volume of items and my lack of time to go HTML crazy, I am including photos of my favorites from this batch of tastings.

by Ethan Johnson
December 7, 2008

I searched high and low for this wine after mistakenly choosing the lesser version of this varietal, only to discover that one of our other stores sold it. I moved some bottles over to my store and held one out for myself (paid for, of course). I can't keep this wine in stock. Seriously - it sells out every time I re-stock. Let's pull the cork on some:

Producer (Vineyard): Avalon
Varietal (Grape type): Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage (Year): 2005
Country: USA (California)
Color: Red
Cost: Moderate ($14 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 29, 2008

My first "wow" wine issued forth from the Russian River Valley in California, and since that discovery I have been aching to make a return voyage. Sadly, RRV wines aren't cheap. I managed to snag the following wine during flush times and sock it away for Thanksgiving:

Producer (Vineyard): Piper-Sonoma
Varietal (Grape type): Pinot Noir
Vintage (Year): 2006
Country: USA (California)
Color: Red
Cost: Expensive ($22 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 22, 2008

I remembered that Beth had written an article about Avalon Napa Valley Cabernet and assumed that's what I bought when I saw the fairly ubiquitous (in my neighborhood) logo and orange label. False. This is the "seeds and stems" version of that wine. Let's get on with it, then:

Producer (Vineyard): Avalon
Varietal (Grape type): Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage (Year): 2005
Country: USA (California)
Color: Red
Cost: Inexpensive ($8 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 20, 2008

My red wine varietal of choice is Petite Sirah. I like other reds, but when push comes to shove, if I see an unfamiliar PS at the store, I'll find a way to scrape together the money to try it. Sadly, our local beer/wine chain carries a paltry number of Petite Sirah offerings, and I have tried over half of them already. Which means I had to go deep behind enemy lines and buy some:

Producer (Vineyard): Huntington Cellars
Varietal (Grape type): Petite Sirah
Vintage (Year): 2005
Country: USA (California)
Color: Red
Cost: Moderate ($15 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 19, 2008

Whoa, where is everybody going? Come ON, you're not going to snob out on me, are you? Let us not forget that the point of this series is to provide totally unpretentious wine reviews. And what could be devoid of pretense better than a glass of White Zin? Let's handle up on our business and have a nice glass of:

Producer (Vineyard): Beringer
Varietal (Grape type): White Zinfandel
Vintage (Year): 2007
Country: USA (California)
Color: Blush
Cost: Cheap ($7 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 16, 2008

Thanks to the magic of vendor shipping errors meeting an employee discount, I solved the pressing problem of finding a place on the rack for the following wine by buying it for my home stash:

Producer (Vineyard): Ravenswood
Varietal (Grape type): Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage (Year): 2005
Country: USA (California)
Color: Red
Cost: Moderate ($15 USD)

by Ethan Johnson
November 16, 2008

Sooner or later, a customer will ask me if I have tasted everything we sell at the beer/wine store. Um, no. And if anyone says they have, they're lying. We have roughly 6000 line items in our inventory, and the wines alone would require drinking a different one every day for over a year. Just the same, we are well-positioned to snag the new releases and give them a whirl before our customers realize that we carry them. Case in point: We are now selling Gordon Biersch beers.