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To all Wine Exchangers, "Simply put, even if one takes into consideration the recent run of strong vintages—2009, 2010, 2011, 2013 and, almost certainly, 2015—2014 might turn out to have produced the most consistently outstanding group of Beaujolais since the legendary 2005s, which is saying something." – Josh Raynolds, Vinous Media Those of you who […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Priced out of Napa? Join the club. But one need only look south to find compelling, ample, distinctive Cabernets that perform at a surprisingly high level for very modest fares.  Australia, Chile, and, in particular, Argentina are kicking our collective tails as far as providing quality varietal Cabernets at modest prices.  […]

To all Wine Exchangers,  “We expect Chile to continue its breakout ways and surprise us with more ‘wait, that’s from Chile?’ type stuff…”—Winex blog, January, 2016 We’ve been seeing this coming slowly, progressively, and unimpeded for a few years now.  But it seemed like we started seeing some really ambitious new things coming along through the latter part […]

To all Wine Exchangers, The first time I met Charles Smith was a little over a decade ago at his converted barn/winery outside Walla Walla. It was our first stop of the morning. We were frankly hung over after a hard night of partying and, from the looks of things, Charles was too. I strolled […]

Summer is winding down but it isn’t quite over yet, which means there’s still some time to get a few BBQs in (including this coming Labor Day).  Someone recently posed the question to us as to what the best wine is to serve with barbecue.  We know we live in a world where people want […]

To all Wine Exchangers, A great deal can pop up for a number of reasons.  A lot of high-priced premium wines are produced up in Northern Cal.  Sometimes the owners of these premium labels produce or commit to more juice than they are comfortable selling under their traditional ‘marketing plan’ during tougher economic times. As […]

To all Wine Exchangers, On the heels of our instant sell-out this morning on the 1990 Lilian Ladouys, we present to you a spectacular pre-arrival opportunity (for those of you that don’t own this ridiculously good wine already, or maybe just want some more!) on what may well be the next 1990 Lilian…20 years down […]

To all Wine Exchangers, 1990… the year that I really got into buying and collecting Bordeaux.  It was a warm, dry vintage in a kind of “new world” style that made them so fun to drink.  There were many great wines that came out that vintage and the harvest was a benchmark that put now-famous […]

To all Wine Exchangers, What’s our first job as merchants finding you the best wines at the best prices? Taste everything. Never fails. It’s that gosh-darn 1 hit after 99 misses that’s usually going to be the difference-maker, the standout, the “Whoa!” So, without further ado, today’s WHOA. A local broker who has knack for […]

To all Wine Exchangers, It seems like only yesterday that we were talking about one of our favorite Chianti blue chips, Felsina (actually it was February).  We’ve have been on the carro della banda (bandwagon) for this house for a long time (two decades?) and consider the letter ‘F’ (as in Felsina, Fontodi, and Fonterutoli) […]