In a fit of curiosity (and market research) we’ve been exploring various options for pouring wine for customers. This is hypothetical, of course, since we’re purely clicks at this point, not clicks and bricks. However, this hasn’t quelled our interest in exploring this topic.

Personally, we’re intrigued by their efficiency, and the sleek Jetsons-like look of the Enomatic dispensers that provide 1oz pours to customers without a smidgen of human interaction; but we think taking away personal communication customers leaves a lot to be desired. And, less rational, we’re also skeptical of the argon preservation system…no matter how neutral we’re told it is, we still have a psychological block against the stuff, and are convinced we can taste a chemical layer on our wine when we know it’s been gassed. Yes, we know that’s totally irrational and wrong.

Now we’d like to hear what you think about the Enomatic systems and similar automated wine-pouring devices?

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Today we’re lazy. Especially after a weekend of opening a few too many bottles (don’t worry, there were lots of friends with us to enjoy them). So, here’s a round-up of WWDTW (see blog post title) and our abbreviated notes with teenage-IM/SMS-style ratings (see key below for translations): Read more…

We boarded a plane from Santa Rosa to LAX yesterday afternoon, and Kevin O’ Connor of LIOCO happened to be on our same flight. Call this a sign from above that it’s about time we make good on our promise to write up the wines we tasted with Kevin a week ago.

For those of you unfamiliar with LIOCO, a bit of background…only a couple of vintages young, Lioco is a small winery crafting Sonoma wines, many of them from single vineyards. Its principals have a storied history in the wine and food industries of California: Matt Licklider spent many years at North Berkeley Imports, handling sales for some of the world’s finest wine labels. Kevin O’ Connor continues to head up the wine program at Spago in Beverly Hills. And winemaker Kevin Kelley got a degree at Davis and spent his formative years in Burgundy before returning to California. Licklider and O’ Connor teamed in 2005 and the rest, as they say, is history… Read more…

Don’t have time to post any notes right now, but we had the chance last week to taste some really fantastic wines with Kevin O’Connor of Lioco wines. We’ll be talking about them here and bringing some of them in to the store.

More soon, we  hope! In the meantime back to our nap, errrr, back to the WITS!

Quick tasting note for Wine Blogging Wednesday #47, hosted by Grape Juice, a Canadian wine blog extraordinaire. We tasted the 2004 l’Aventure Estate Syrah from Paso Robles at a dinner party on Saturday night, so the “S” in this case comes from the grape variety.

Sorry we couldn’t get a whole lot more creative than that and also encompass the producer, region, or fantasy wine name. If we weren’t being all economical and whatnot, perhaps we would have cracked open a Super-Tuscan from Sassicaia. Oh well, next time this theme comes around, perhaps we won’t be in penny-pinching mode (brought to us by the economic downturn not to be referred to as a recession).

In any case, back to the wine…the 2004 l’Aventure Syrah was a bit of a disappointment. Too big, too bold, too everything. But mostly, it smelled and tasted of Dimetapp which was a big flaw for us, though we’re pretty sure there was nothing “off” about the bottle. Just too grapey and medicinal for us. We couldn’t get past it. Apparently Dimetapp is now some sort of controlled substance, though our parents didn’t have an issue plying us with it when we had the sniffles in the 1970s and 80s. Ah, those were the days…

There’s a silver lining, though. Considering we used to guzzle Dimetapp proper when we were more regular viewers of Sesame Street, the originator of the “brought to you by the letter…” theme, we think this is the perfect wine for this particular Wine Blogging Wednesday. Even if we plan to never drink it again.

Cheers!