The G-5 Garnacha was Vino Sin-Ley's top bottling along with the G-2, G-3, G-4 which were also colorful and cheap. This is festive, fruity, and at 10 bucks a bottle, well worth seeking out. Fun raspberry and cherry flavors and bright acidity. Well worth picking up a few if you can find them.

Domaine Tempier's own Lucien Peyraud died in 1998. The great cookbook scribe Richard Olney passed on a year later. Olney was a great fan of Lucien's and not to be morbid, but I can only imagine what magnificent spreads they had at the wakes. How can the ethereal patchwork of color and taste of Provence be anything but life-affirming and happy? I can't fathom pondering death while licking stray bits of aoli from my fingers. Perhaps that's for the best. Anyway, Bandol, Domaine Tempier. This is where the sunlight gets into the grapes and makes your spirit sing. Those great vistas you see in postcards of the French Riviera and the Mediterranean sun in all that blue sea, you taste that. You taste the sun.

While pallets of TC Shotfire Ridge languished on slow boats to Los Angeles, I was innundated with phone calls for it. This was at the old job. I drank the 2002 out of a brown paper bag behind a church with a retired Army colonel and a brain surgeon. We ended up getting in a fight with a busload of angry and drunken soccer players and we won. I slept for a week afterwards. For the 2003 I actually used a glass and as I faded into that black purple mire of everything that is good and supple and ripe about Shiraz. I fought this bitch back like Gandalf and the Balrog, but in the end, I utterly lost. Yes, it was worth the wait. A huge purple succubus that will take you down and do a shimmy on your tongue for weeks afterwards. Shotfire Ridge Shiraz makes me want to slice open the guts of everyone who has ever seriously told me that Yellow Tail Shiraz was "Yummy", anoint them with this purple elixer and save their very soul from damnation...

My favorite second growth and sometimes its just easier to say this is my favorite Bordeaux...ever. 2001 was great for everyone involved and it was the vintage that made me fall in love with the velveteen juggernaut that is Ducru-Beaucaillou. A beautiful expression of fruit, incense, and a garden after a good rain. Say it. Say "Ducru-Beaucaillou". Say it. Savor the syllables and say it again...

It doesn't get better than this for under $20. Deep and rich and goes great with everything like good Rhone blends should. Some serious structure and balance for the price.

A big sloppy mess of fruit at the front and some searing peppery notes at the end. Mouth-filling, juicy, unctious and big. Enjoy now before gets old enough to know better.