JULY-AUGUST 2010
1-800-356-3970
GROEZINGER CUSTOMER, Congratulations! If you are holding this Newsletter in your hands, it means that you survived last month’s mailing list purge. You’ve either been a solid, supportive customer over the past couple years, or we just really like you. If you are reading this on your computer you are either a far sighted and environmentally conscious wine aficionado, or you haven’t been buying much from us as of late. Whatever your status, we hope you can step up and represent this month, especially since there will be no wine made in Napa for at least the next five years due to complete devastation of every vine in the valley by the European grapevine moth. The valley floor is quarantined, (162 square miles in Napa, Sonoma, and Solano counties) forcing masses of tourists to appointment only mountain wineries causing havoc among overrun tasting rooms and their uppity staffs. The massive hordes of wine tasters have been stumbling drunk and reckless out of said tasting rooms, trampling the younger vines and rolling their rental cars through established sites, causing further degradation to vineyards and reducing overall yields by at least a third. So we recommend you stock your cellars now with case upon case of Napa and Sonoma wine to drink and sell to your neighbors at greatly inflated prices. Even if these dire predictions turn out to be a little exaggerated, you should stock up, just to be on the safe side. To help you out in that endeavor, check inside for the Great Groezinger Wine Sale of 2010!! We’ve gutted some of our already low prices and we hope you take advantage of our ankle-grabbing, bent-over posture.
WE SHIP ANYWHERE (except Utah). $90 ships three cases anywhere in the continental United States!!!
$20 per case ships to our good neighbors in CA, OR, and WA. $30-$45 ships one case via UPS to most other states, and if you live in a state still suffering from Prohibition era restrictions we’ll bootleg it to you for $60 for one case, $90 for two, and $100 for three! These prices make it CHEAP and EASY to get great wines where ever you reside.
TOO HOT TO SHIP? WE’LL STORE YOUR PURCHASE FOR FREE UNTIL IT’S COOL ENOUGH TO SHIP
1.) 2006 PIERSON MEYER, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley–$77.00 Due to the vile nature of this publication many people don’t make it to the back page, so this month we’re putting this wine out in front. You can read last month’s review for the details and if you want lots of points, watch basketball. This is ultra-badass Cab that makes cult members commit suicide. Why would you buy three bottles of bullshit for $1500 when you can get 12 bottles of the truth for $924?
2.) 2007 CHAPPELLET, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pritchard Hill, Napa Valley–$120.00 Here’s a wine that got lots of points, I don’t know how many because I don’t read that crap, but it’s got points. Chappellet’s pride and joy is exclusively from vineyards on Pritchard Hill, the home to some of the best Cabernet in Napa Valley, like this one and Pierson Meyer.
3.) 2007 GHOST BLOCK, Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville, Napa Valley–$55.00 A wine of “Biblical proportions!”
3.) 2006 SCHOOLHOUSE, Pinot Noir, Spring Mountain, Napa Valley–$80.00 We were able to procure about five more cases of the most incredible, most ageable, and most impossible to find Pinot from…..Napa? This stuff is so good we’ll be happy even if you don’t buy it because then WE will have plenty of Pinot that is way better than the stuff you’re drinking which means that without this wine you’ll be having less fun than you could have. Life is short. Go balls out.
4.) 2007 FORT ROSS, Estate Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast–$25.00 Fort Ross doesn’t want us to discount this wine but they haven’t bitched about our $20 price on their $30 Chard so I guess they’re cool. This is $37 in the real world, but if you call me now, before they catch wind of this, you will get the best fucking deal you’ve ever tasted from the Sonoma Coast. This wine is on par with Flowers, Peay, Gary Farrell and many other pricier Pinots for about half the price. So for $300 you can get a case that is normally $444 and is currently on sale at the winery for $360. We’ll ship it to you cheaper than they will or store it for you at no cost until fall. Can a Pinot lover/drinker really afford to miss this deal? Not really.
5.) 2007 DEHLINGER, Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley–$44.50 This is a classic. You’ve probably had it and loved it, maybe even searched for it because it’s allocated and usually hard to find. Now, it’s extremely easy to get with just one phone call. Ring us up and taste what put the Russian River Valley on the map. (along with the Russians and Rochioli)
6.) 2007 DEHLINGER, Chardonnay, Russian River Valley–$35.00 A brilliant wine with perfectly balanced richness, acidity, and alcohol. Flavors of pear, baked apple, lemon crème, buttered pound cake and a light minerality make this a complex wine that outperforms most $35 Chards and rivals many that are $20-30 more. Perfect with potatoes or caviar.
7.) 2007 FORT ROSS, Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast–$20.00 Still the best $20 Chard from California. That’s because it’s $30 at the winery and is a great deal even at that price. It is so coastal, you can see the ocean from the vineyard. Ultra bright fruit is rounded out with French oak and malolactic fermentation. Great for summertime chugging.
FEATURED RED WINES
2006 MEDLOCK-AMES, Bell Mountain Ranch, Red Table Wine, Alexander Valley, Sonoma-$25.00
Chris Medlock James and Ames Morison are the kind of people who continue to give us faith in an industry, craft and art form that has become so polluted with fakes and hucksters that it makes it hard to find even an honest wine in this part of the world anymore. They also offer the California wine lover hope for the future, being two young guys who own their own estate, farm organically and sustainably, treat their employees with dignity and respect, and still crank out truly fine wines that people can actually afford to drink. A case in point is this delicious, structured, and food friendly claret fashioned from equal parts estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Generously fruity with plenty of backbone, this wine offers up loads of ripe plum, red currant, wild blackberry, baking spice, and a dusting of cocoa powder, all wrapped in the plush fine grained tannins that are the signature of Sonoma county reds. We’ve been selling these wines since their inaugural release of Merlot, and they just keep getting better every year. In this time of rampant consolidation, degradation, and homogenization in the wine industry, you owe it to yourself and beverage you love to support the little guys; young winemakers trying to build the future and tiny wine shops that refuse to sell you over priced schlock. Or you could go to Safeway and buy a bottle from a hundred thousand case production of Gallo red at the same price and then take it home and pound it as you watch your stock shares of BP plummet. The future is in your hands. 685 cases made.
2004 MAYACAMAS VINEYARDS, Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, Mt. Veeder, Napa-$60.00
Mayacamas Cabernet has long been one of the reasons you keep a wine cellar, as they are one of the very few wineries left still producing wine in the old-school California style. Have you ever wondered what the great California Cabs of the ‘70s tasted like? You know, the ones that thrashed Bordeaux in the 1976 Paris tasting? They probably tasted very much like this one; lower in alcohol, judiciously oaked, with a substantial backbone of tannin and acidity. Fortunately, Bob Travers remains true to his roots, crafting his wines exactly as he has since 1968, first mercilessly thinning his crops and then patiently elevating his juice in used American casks and new French oak. Mayacamas is one of the only wineries that cellars their wine before release, a practice almost unheard-of these days. His 2004 is a blockbuster, showing incredible ripeness (evident in the whopping 13.75% alcohol level) and a dense core of black cherry, cassis, soil-stone, mint and Mt. Veeder bramble, which will evolve gracefully into cigar-tobacco nuance with a few more years in the bottle. If you don’t want to wait until 2025 to drink this then you’re in luck, because this Cab is highly expressive and complex now and should remain so through its lifetime. Pick up a few of these to cellar and a couple to drink and give thanks that there are still a few people in this world who cherish tradition, rebuke fashion, and deliver exceptional quality at an honest price.
2008 BEDROCK WINE COMPANY, Pinot Noir, Rebecca’s Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma-$40.00
Staying on the new-old school theme, it’s time to speak once again of second generation wine guy Morgan Twain-Peterson, son of Joel Peterson, who founded a little winery no one has ever heard of called RavensWood. Morgan has been making wine since he was six years old (no shit), and his first wine was a Pinot Noir. Even though his mainstay these days is old vine mixed black varietals, his 2008 Rebecca’s Pinot is undoubtedly one of the best wines he’s come up with. In all un-funniness and all Flintstones related humor aside, this is one of the most striking and profound Pinots we’ve come across in a long time, and if you love Pinot, you are frankly screwing yourself if you don’t buy some. Rumor has it (because we can’t put it definitively in print) that Rebecca’s is planted with heisted Domaine de la Romanée Conti clones, the resulting wine combines the pedigree of the vines with the distinct terroir of Russian River Valley’s cool climate and loamy soil. Ultra-concentrated and precisely balanced, this tightly wound wine shows layers of cherry and raspberry preserve, blood orange, black tea, rose petal, asian spice and earth after a lengthy decanting. This stuff will definitely benefit from a few years in the cellar and should keep for well over a decade. Simply stunning! 189 cases made.
2006 LAGIER MEREDITH, Estate Syrah, Mount Veeder, Napa Valley–$41.00
Without too much debate or tasting, this is probably the best Syrah in Napa and maybe in the Western Hemisphere. If y’all want to tell me I’m wrong and you know one that ages better, tastes better, and pairs with food better, then give me a call and educate me. Otherwise, I would highly recommend you still call me and order some of this incredible wine so that you have something that actually compliments your spice rubbed grilled lamb chops. I could go blue in the face telling you how great this stuff is but that would be like someone telling you about how good the sex is with someone you really want to but haven’t boinked yet. And for $41 bucks, at least your tongue can get laid and you can get drunk. Lagier & Meredith are wine legends. Carol Meredith discovered the origins of Zinfandel among other things, and Steve Lagier is a basketball dunkin’-Seven Eleven vigilante-mountain top farming-four wheeling maniac. Their Syrah has great ageability and structure, shows authentic varietal correctness, and is true to its Rhone roots. The black and blue color is just a warning of the inescapable ass whooping this stuff dishes out. Seamlessly sewn flavors of blackberry, blueberry, spice, minerality, clove, and dried rose petal give an almost French essence to this very California Syrah.
FEATURED WHITE WINES
2008 SANS LIEGE WINES, Cotes-du-Coast, Paso Robles–$23 (41% Viognier, 40% Rousanne, 19%Marsanne)
Here’s something to help wash down your Syrah– A delightful, bright and uplifting white with crisp acidity and a fat mouthfeel. You might remember the OFFERING. This is an equally badass wine except it’s white. Like Rocky. Hurry up and get this before summer is over because it is so good it makes the hottest weather feel like crisp mountain air and will temporarily make you forget about the oil spill in the gulf and how you really shouldn’t eat shrimp because they’re not from the gulf anymore and shrimp farming is an environmental tragedy even though this wine pairs so well with schrimpseses. Scallops, seabass, salmon, lobster, and abalone will also match up perfectly. Flavors of ripe pear, melon, and orange rind are thickened and erected with a kiss of oak and a little pumping from winemaker, Curt Schalchlin. This winery is kicking ass and taking names. Call soon as supplies are limited.
2007 WHITE ROCK VINEYARDS, Estate Chardonnay, Napa Valley–$27.50
Rarely, almost never, does a Chardonnay of this purity come from California. We visited this incredible example of what a winery should be a few weeks ago and were floored by this stunning Chard. From first whiff you can tell that something awesome is about to happen. The color is light straw with a brilliant yellow tinge. You’ll pick up delightful flavors of granny smith apple, crisp white pear, nectarine, white grape, and you might be able to detect a slight nuance of very neutral, un-invasive French Oak. This winery puts ALL of their focus on the wine, not on a fancy driveway, expensive stationary, a vineyard manager, a winemaker, a yellow Hummer, or a castle. Get a taste of what Chardonnay is supposed to be instead of accepting and tolerating what it has become. More of the truth!
THE GREAT WINE SALE OF 2010
Continued economic diarrhea and consumers fearing the end of humanity(2012) have convinced us to give away our inventory. Has anyone else thought,” what if the Gulf of Mexico turns into a huge oil slick and catches on fire consuming the western hemisphere and killing everything on the face of the planet?” I never think about that kind of stuff. Let’s hope the Mayan’s were wrong about 2012. If they were right, the end of the world is one big reason to party. Be sure to have plenty of wine on hand when your homeless and displaced friends come over to seek refuge at your house. Check out these insane prices and give us a call before these wines are gone. Limited quantities.
2004 Barlow Cab-$33.00 2008 Brown Zin-$27.00 2005 Corte Riva Petit Sirah-$30.00
2005 Barlow Barrouge-$30.00 2005 Chase Hayne Zin-$27.00 2004 Dry River Syrah NZ-$45.00
2006 Cakebread Cab-$45.00 2006 D-Cubed Zin-$25.00 2007 Stanton Petite Sirah-$35.00
2006 Carp Diem Cab-$20.00 2006 Edmeads Sham.Zin-24.00 2005 Smith Wooton Syrah-$25.00
2006 Chareau Smith Cab-$10.00 2005 Hartford Court Highwire-$40 2005 Schoolhouse Mescolonza-$35
2006 Etude GBR-$35.00 2004 Highlands HM Zin-$15.00 2006 Retro Petit Sirah HM-$37
2006 Grace Family BLANK-$110.00 2005 Mansfield Zin-$24.00 Dutschke 20 yr, the TAWNY-$30.00
2005 Igneous Cab-$65.00 2006 Paraduxx-$30.00 2006 Adastra Proximus Pinot -$45
2005 Ilsley Cab-$40.00 2006 Franus Brandlin Zin-$27.00 2008 Castalia Pinot Noir-$35.00
2006 Ladera Cab-$33.00 2005 Schoolhouse Mescolonza-$33 2007 Dierberg Pinot Noir-$33.00
2006 Mario Pirelli Mineti-$15.00 2008 Sineaan OV Zin-$30.00 2007 Harrington Chalone Pinot-$30
2005 Oakville Ranch Cab-$40.00 2006 Storybook Mtn Antaeus-30.00 2006 La Fenetre Pinot Noir-$35.00
2006 One Acre Cab-$30.00 2006 Valdez Rockpile Zin-$30.00 2006 Soter North Valley Pinot-$23
2005 Paradigm Cab-$45.00 2007 Venge Scouts Honor-$30.00 2008 Ramspeck Pinot Noir-$13
2006 Parallel Cab-$45.00 2007 Venge Sangiovese-$24.00 2007 Peay Estate Pinot-$35
2006 Petite Vice Cab-$40.00 2006 Vineyard 1869 Zin-$27.00 2007 Zepaltas Suacci Pinot-$35.00
2006 Ramey Claret-$25.00 2007 Desante Sauv Blanc-$14.00 2006 Donum Carneros Pinot-$45
2006 Redmon Cab-$35.00 2008 Ehert Sauv Blanc-$11.00 2008 Ramspeck Merlot-$15.00
2006 Pedras Cab-$45.00 2008 Egelhoff Riesling-$25.00 2005 Obrien Merlot-$25.00
2007 Layer Cake Cab-$20.00 2007 Harts Desire Sauv Blanc-$10 2002 Del Dotto Cab Franc-$40.00
2006 Smith Wooton Cab Franc-$27 2007 Sawyer Sauv Blanc-$10.00 2001 Del Dotto “David”-$50.00
2006 Spottswoode Cab-$100.00 2008 Jus Soli Sauv Blanc-$12.00 2002 Del Dotto Con.Seir.Cab-$50.00