TODAY'S TOP NEWS

• Beyond Empire: NY State Cracks Down on Top Wine Merchants
• SB County Asks For Gov's Help With Chumash Expansion
• Your Wine Label Has Just 40 Seconds To Make A Sale
• Younger generation falling for Bordeaux wine
• Naked Wines looks to recruit 25,000 more angels by year-end
• Bordeaux négociant system could disappear
• UK Discounters are most "disruptive" force in retailing in 20 years
• Expand Your US Distribution - Enter Your Brands In 2015 BTN USA Guide Now! *Sponsored Link*

• Large Pacific NW Harvest Floods Custom-Crush Wineries
• Mixed Fortunes for Italy's Harvest
• Lake County labels expect great things from 2014 vintage
• Wine production in France to surge by 10%
• Central Coast grower reports improving yields, crop quality high
• Bordeaux recovery boosts French volumes
• Wide range of yields for Madera County grower
• Concerns rise as grape-rotting fly found in Bordeaux vineyards
• Make sure to order harvest bins while the supply lasts *Sponsored Link*

• New Paso AVAs Available for Use in November
• New warehouses under construction in American Canyon

• If you think the current drought is bad, try 500 years ago
• State Farm Bureau backs water bond, rainy day fund
• Water bond measure flooded with support, but opponents have a strategy
• USGS Science in the Delta
• Oil companies’ fracking fines go to Visalia-based water center
• Sustainability: A History *Sponsored Link*

• Trying New Wine Is A Pain In The Ass
• Ancient Italy and the New California ~ An Auspicious Convergence
• Wine lovers urged to embrace old Rioja
• William Shatner’s Brown Bag
• Concrete Zinfandel merges old school with space age technology
• Sparkling wine from Franciacorta
• Great quotes in wine history: Prince Charles
• How The Vines Aligned for The Dreamers at Maison Harbour
• Shadows in the Vineyard: The True Story of the Plot to Poison the World's Greatest Wine *Sponsored Link*

• Grapevine Red Blotch Disease Threatens Pinot Noir & Other Grapes
• Post-harvest irrigation can help prevent uneven vine growth next spring
• Vines still available, order now!! **Sponsored Link*

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TODAY'S FEATURED WINE

Joel Gott Wines: Red Blend: California: Collaboration between Joel Gott and Dave Phinney: non vintage: United States

This is a great $8 bottle. Sadly, it cost $17.99.

I bought it mainly because Dave Phinney's name was listed as a collaborator with Joel Gott (from whom I have a totally ordinary 2012 Zinfandel I will review later). I greatly enjoy Phinney's efforts with Orin Swift's quirky Locations label and thought this would be in the same ballpark.

Nope.

Locations is major league, but this this struggles, but doesn't quite achieve AA ball.

Insipid...a bland melange of various organoleptic touchpoints with no focus. Even with an eye chart, I can't see buying it again.

 REVIEW POLICY:

For winery tasting samples, gifts from friends or family or samplings at a party or event, review it truthfully, but only if I like it. If I have paid my own very-hard-earned money on a bottle, the gloves are off and it gets what it deserves ... whether perfect or puerile.