Too rich for my blood.

I'm sorry my pictures have been so bad - I have been procrastinating on charging my camera battery. which seems like a weird thing to procrastinate on, but for some reason I do things like that. With laundry and the grocery store too. I will go 2 days eating only canned beans in olive oil in order to avoid the grocery store. 

SOOOOO.... on to the wine. I feel serious today so here goes...

Yes, I know, those of you who know the label see that this is a wine none of us can afford, but I think this is an interesting discussion to have. 

My friend Bob Asher and Eduardo P-C (the latter is the somm at Grace) were giving me s**t last night for not buying wine under $15 because I automatically assume it's bad. All of you guys give me s**t actually. BUT my point to them was that I would rather pay $5 and increase my chances of getting a very good bottle of wine than to have to experiment and waste my money anyway. 

That said, out of all my wine friends, especially those up in Lompoc, and all the BIG somms in the LA proximity, I probably drink the cheapest. Frightening really. 

I have friends who regularly drink wines like the one pictured above. This wine is from Domaine D'Auvenay, Lalou' Bize-Leroy's declassification project. Apparently, in 2004 Lalou decalssified everything. There are no 1er or Grand Crus. So here we are then with a village level Gevrey-Chambertin that purports to be Mazis-Chambertin. 

It was good, very very good, had rich sweet bing cherry fruit and fresh green spice. But the price is steep, $375. Fun to taste, great to drink, but I simply could never justify spending $375 on a bottle of village level wine even if I knew it was in reality Grand Cru. What I am saying is that even I have my spending limits, and this is it!!!

Our friend, Jim Knight, from the Wine House shared this beautiful wine with us at the Hungry Cat in Santa Barbara, and I thank him because it's an education that I cannot afford to give myself.