Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

As a native Detroiter, I'm wathching the game tonight, forget about the debate. Would love to see a Cards/Tigers WS. Harkens all the way back to '68, when I fell in love with baseball...

So comparing the Fox (NL) and TBS (AL) coverage, I find the Turner camera shots, graphics, and commentary all clear winners over Fox. Turner shows me what I want to see, Fox is distracting - like they're playing to an ADHD crowd.

To accompany, a 2000 Giscours: Cellared since release. Perfect fill and cork. Deep dark red core, minimal lightening at rim. Rich nose of ripe cassis, Margaux-berries, earthy funk and a hint of mocha/tar - this is developing nicely as the oak integrates and the Margaux-ness starts to come to the fore. Medium-full body, interesting mix of ripe cassis fruit and tarry/earthy notes on the palate follow the nose, too soon for any serious tertiary characteristics, nice balance, medium-long finish. Still on the upswing, this wine is in an interesting place showing some classic Margaux notes and some omdern richenss and power. I expect this will continue to improve over the next five years. Outstanding.

Oh I totally agree, I think TBS has it all over Fox.
TBS is understated, like a 2002 Medoc.
Fox is all 2003 flash and hype.
Give me the 2002 any day.

I love the 2000 Giscours. Very beautiful Margaux, true to the appelation.

Mickey Lolich isn't walking through that door.
I'm predicting a Yankee victory tonight, I think Verlander is overrated.

Anybody but the Yankees in the WS!

Excellent baseball-watching wine, the 2000 Giscours. I wish I am drinking something as good right now, but I opted for the available white in the refrigerator, a Laurent Gerard 2011 Sancerre, which is OK but not in 2000 Giscours caliber. Besides, with Verlander on the mound for Detroit and all the supposedly-Yankee canons arming themselves with their wimpy pea-shooters in the playoffs, I'd just settle in with a decent wine for now.

Yankees are due.

But Verlander is good. Don't know about over-rated. Yeah, maybe over-hyped. But still a damn good pitcher.

Sooner or later the bats have to wake up...

I'm just bitter because I thought Ellsbury should have gotten the MVP last year.

Understandable. The Cy Young would've been enough.

Yo, Guys! I hate to tell you but the yankees suck this year. There is nothing like watching the most over watched team in sports fall flat. Who is there to pick up the slack after all their great aging stars are injured, slumping etc? Sorry - nobody! It's almost sad.... Almost. I have no idea how they won so many games this year, but I am very happy that they will probably not win any more.

Yankees are old and have too many of those old players under long, expensive contracts. They're done.

Apologies to any Y-fans and also to those sensitive to boorish, drunken posts. I had a rather bad day yesterday. I'm a Mets fan, obviously, yet I still root for Jeter to some extant. When everyone was rocking the steroids he stood tall with his 19 HRs or whatever. Anyway, I saw a bottle of 2009 Chasse-Spleen at Astor today for $40. While everyone else is skimping on their labels, C-S seems to be upgrading. I can't wait to try it!

Hey I'm a Red Sox fan and I'm a fan of Jeter.
I order you to report back on the 2009 Chasse Spleen.
I'm gonna uncork a 2009 or two tomorrow

I was concerned about Detroit's bullpen - Benoit and Valverde have been waaay less than stellar. But the Detroit starters and Coke plus some pretty good defense have been enough to keep the aging Yanks at bay. Pretty hard to see NY coming back from a 3-0 deficit, especially without Jeter. It's looking like a Cards/Tigers WS could be a real possibility. Jeter's a stand-up guy in my book and a great player. Sad to see him go down.

Tonight's Bordeaux, while waiting out the rain delay (could be a long night) is another winner, if not thoroughly classic:

2000 Grand Pontet (St. Emilion): Cellared since release, perfect fill and cork. Dark red core, minimal lightening at rim. Forward intense nose of black fruits, tar, smoke and earth - more California than St. Emilion but very appealing. Medium-full body, nice balance, ripe fruits and tar notes follow the nose, a bit of earthy complexity suggesting Bordeaux, pretty mellow tannins remain, medium-long finiish. Still improving, outstanding.

I liked the Giscours more, but no complaints here.

Hapless Yanks got a reprieve for a few minutes with rain delay. I'll settle in with a 2004 Dopff & Irion "Les Murailles" Riesling from Alsace.
Wow, Chassse, $40 for a Chasse-Spleen? What do they think they are? A fifth-growth?

I think $40 for Chasse-Spleen is fair, especially considering the cost of equivalent wines, QPR, etc.

DavidG must be a happy man, his Tigers are going to the World Series.
To me, as good as it gets in sports!

Woohoo! Congratulations Detroit!

Yeah, go Tigers! That was pretty definitive. Scherzer pitched really well and the Tiger bats came alive, against Sabathia no less, who admittedly wasn't pitching his best.

Now I'm rooting for the Cards and finishing up the '00 Grand Pontet. Fruit has receded a bit band the tannins have come forward - it was better yesterday.

No doubt about it. That was an old-fashioned butt-kicking by the Tigers, a team that was well-managed and everybody stepped up when needed (except Valverde).
Yeah, Tigers all the way for me now!

Re: 2000 Grand Pontet
I tasted a bottle about 2 years ago and recall a dark, quite backward and a throwback Right Bank which made me purchase a few for long term keeping.

I thought Leland should've pulled Valverde immediately after the FIRST 9th-inning homer in that nail biter. It seemed like everyone in the world saw that Valverde was toast. All worked out in the end, but if it hadn't there would've been endless second-guessing of Leland's loyalty to his players.

Looks like SF will live another day. Sitting in a hotel room with no Bordeaux tonight.

No Bordeaux tonight, but David, take your revenge : open a nice Bordeaux when the Tigers will win the World Series!

Nic

Not looking too good for the Cards tonight. I am drinking a stern tannic wine that is giving my palate the same kind of whipping the Giants are giving the Cards:

2005 Clos les Lunelles, Cotes de Castillon: Dark red to rim. Nose is a bit shy - cassis, some leafy green vegetation, bit of earth, mocha/oak. Medium body, harsh ashy tannins overwhelm the fruit here. Not much opening over a couple of hours. Finish remains mostly harsh tannins. An earlier bottle showed much better not long after release. Hoping this is just shut down hard and can come back, but right now the fruit is in hiding. This is a poster child right now for the heavy tannins that characterized early reports on the '05s. Going to leave these alone for a few years and keep my fingers crossed.

It's looking pretty much all Giants at this point. I don't have any problem rooting for the ex-NY Giants. Did they ever win it in San Fran before two years ago? And I love that stoned out looking pitcher; reminds me of an Eagle Scout I once knew.

Tigers are looking pretty bad, for sure. Last night's effort was only worthy of a $12 Cotes du Rhone... Weak and flawed.

I had a 3-day old, re-corked and half-full,German Spatlese from my refrigerator when I watched parts of Game 3. The wine was flat and uninspired.

Very appropriate wine if you are a Tigers fan, Ramon. Just what I want when I watch the Dallas Cowboys.

Which reminds me that I have to pull out something bad enough for seeing Eli again rule in the new CB dome. Maybe a 1992 Beaujolais Nouveau.

Figuring if I pull a great wine tonight, maybe it'll rub off on the Tigers:

1989 Pichon Baron: A BWE Legend: Cellared since release. Perfect fill and cork. Decanted and drunk over 2 hours. Dark red core, lightening but no bricking at rim. Intense forward nose of red fruits and plums, cedar, earth, tobacco and a hint of caramel. Full body, ripe red fruits layered with nice complex earthiness, almost creamy palate feel, great balance, resolved tannins, long finish, at peak and expected to stay there for many years. Outstanding, verging on extraordinary.

Maybe this will do the trick - Tigers up 2-1 in the fifth. Cabrera's bat finally wakes up - even if assisted by the freaky weather, if it helps them avoid a sweep, I'll take it. Giants still playing great defense. Looks like the long ball may be the only way around that.

Uh-oh, Giants up 3-2, Tigers down to their last 3 outs. Might not have been enough magic in that bottle of '89 Pichon Baron. I probably should've opened a first growth...

Congrats to the Giants - clearly the better team won.

It's a familiar lament on Boston.com: "Marco Scutaro. How come we can't get players like that?"

It is rather bizarre though that Detroit swept the Yankees and were then swept by San Francisco. Doesn't make sense...

That's what I kept telling myself, Chasse. NY bats were silent, yielded to Detroit's pitching. SF only killed the ball in the first game, some blamed this on too much rest for Verlander. But the Giants' defense was stellar througout and Detroit played sloppily. Why they lost their edge in the field I don't know. Hard to blame too much time off between the ALCS and the WS.

David, I don't think it was about SF defense. There wasn't really much offense by Detroit during the series that SF needed to exert much stellar defense on.
Btw, that '89 Pichon Baron is a heck of a wine. In spite of the Tigers, you did well with the wines.

Hey nothing to complain about, David, it was a great season for the Tigers any way you cut it. Triple Crown, World Series berth. Congratulations to Marco Scutaro's Giants! Never understood why we got rid of that guy. He was very popular in the locker room, I guess he is considered the funniest guy in the team.

Ramon - yes Detroit bats were mostly silent. Miguel Cabrera did not have a Triple Crown-worthy WS. But there were a couple of pretty nice double plays turned by the Giants to shut down potential scoring opportunities and some great catches in the outfield that robbed the Tigers of what would have been extra-base hits. It was both. The Pichon Baron, OTOH, was everything I hoped it would be.

Jim, yes, can't complain about the Tigers' season. They did very well and they were beat by the better team. Scutero was pretty amazing. And those 3 homers by Sandoval were also amazing.

I'm just glad to see that baseball has been having other teams in the post season besides the usual suspects, teams like Cinncinnatti, Detroit, SF, Tampa, Baltimore, Oakland, etc. Its good to see some parity.

Scutaro is almost 37 and maybe was 36 already when the Sox traded him end of last season. Yes he played well - very well actually - while the guys melted all around him in 2011 but he can't play SS anymore and Pedroia isn't going anywhere. I'll tell you though I knew he was going to drill it to right. No lie. He's a savvy guy and mentally he knows what to do with the bat, which is take what you can get sometimes. He's had his best years later though, kind of like Dwight Evans. Not the usual career path.

Chasse it does make sense. Giants had momentum. The played 6 elimination games and won prior to the series. There pitching caught fire during the playoff. The Giants have excellent starters and the best bullpen of anyone in the post season. The bullpen was even better with Timmy , 2 time Cy winner, coming out of it. Detroit's bullpen sucked. They (tigers) have an impressive starting rotating but the bullpen was not strong.

The Giants have a stellar defense which helped them throughout the series. They are a team in the truest sense and each understood his part. Thus small ball was the only way to win and that's the way they played it.

There are no stars. Each game had new heros. Only Pablo was an offensive force thoughout the series.

The pundits want to forget about the Giants but they've won two out of three years and I think they will be around for many a year.

The Tigers didn't have momentum? Their pitching totally stifled the Yanks, and then they rolled over and player dead for SF. They made some horrible plays in the field. That stuff will kill you. Bottom line, they choked, big time. I know, it happens but i always find this kind of sweep-sweep scenario puzzling.

It's just baseball, CS - our Orioles (I'm a Bawlmer boy, born and raised) sure would have liked a better showing from the Bronx Bombers against Day-twa!

I don't believe the tigers had mo, but they probably believe they did. (read overconfidence) They played a terrible Yankee team and that series gave them the idea that they were bullet proof. We say the results. Once past the starting pitchers, Detriot was helpless.

Yup. Detroit had no bullpen, their best hitters were mostly shut down by the Giant's pitching, they made mistakes on the basepaths (didnt adapt to "small ball" as well), and were lackluster on defense compared to stellar Giants fielding. Overconfident after sweeping NY? Avoid bet, but even if so they were simply outmatched and outplayed in multiple categories.