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HiYa! If you're new here, you may want to Sign Up to get all the latest wine coolness delivered to your virtual doorstep. I've also got short, easily-digestible mini wine reviews and some educational, entertaining wine vids. If you're looking to up your wine tasting IQ, check out my book How to Taste Like a Wine Geek: A practical guide to tasting, enjoying, and learning about the world's greatest beverage. Cheers!

Ok… here’s TPD, Episode two! Enjoy…

The Punch Down LIVE – Episode Two with guest Randall Grahm

Cheers!

We’re back to more controversial topics on my latest Playboy.com Wined Down column. Admit it, you like it controversial, don’t you…?

About two weeks ago, PB published my list of Four Wine Traditions That Need To Die. And the sooner that those traditions shuffle off their mortal coils, the better.

Those traditions are, in order of appearance:

1. Sniffing the cork (isn’t that kind of like sniffing a jar lid?)
2. Paying any attention whatsoever to a wine’s “legs” (especially when you could be paying attention to your dinner date’s legs)
3. The overly-generous (but overly-stupid, for many reasons) “overpour”
4. Going for a loud “pop” when opening a bottle of sparkling wine (you paid extra for those bubbles, so why the hell are you letting so many of them out when you open the bottle?)

I am absolutely serious about each and every one of them, too.

I’d add a fifth, which would be that online wine writing is just as valid and has just as much reach as writing that appears in print, but we both know that one is a losing battle at the moment, right? Ahh… maybe someday…

Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts on those long-standing traditions – so go on over and read the details, and come back here and let me know if I got it right (or wrong!).

Cheers!

So, like, what is this stuff, anyway?
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes with you via twitter (limited to 140 characters). They are meant to be quirky, fun, and easily-digestible reviews of currently available wines. Below is a wrap-up of those twitter wine reviews from the past week (click here for the skinny on how to read them), along with links to help you find these wines, so that you can try them for yourself. Cheers!

• 10 Hourglass Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Berry cobbler, plum liqueur glaze, gravel plate, wooden fork, dash of awesome. $155 A >>find this wine<<
• 10 Hourglass Blueline Vineyard Cabernet Franc (Napa Valley): How lovers should meet; nearly exploding w/ tension, power &amp; edginess. $135 A- >>find this wine<<
• 10 Hourglass Blueline Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Like an emotionally-charged soy sauce/cassis/gravel menage-a-trois. $125 A- >>find this wine<<
• 10 Hourglass Blueline Vineyard Merlot (Napa Valley): No escaping the complexity, fruity-sweet-sexy largesse, or the general largeness $75 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 10 Hugel et Fils Hugel Riesling (Alsace): Almost sweet but definitely electrifying; maybe the most gulpable Hugel in several years. $22 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 04 Bodegas Franco-Espanolas Rioja Bordon Gran Reserva (Rioja): Familiar like an easy chair, or a bowl of comfort food on a raw day. $24 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 11 Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel Brut Rose (Stellenbosch): Funky floral cool modeena, performed with a side of freshly ripened red berries. $24 B >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pina Napa Valley Wolff Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Yountville): Rich, demanding &amp; driven; plums playing hot potato w/ dried herbs $85 A- >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pina Napa Valley Ames Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Oakville): Refined, broad, tinged w/ herbs; practically the mayor of Oakville. $85 A- >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pina Napa Valley D'Adamo Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley): Both hot &amp; sweet, in a silky, come-hither-big-boy kind of way. $75 B+ >>find this wine<<
• 09 Pina Napa Valley Firehouse Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Rutherford): More like fire-juggling, &amp; nearly worthy of cirque du soleil. $85 A- >>find this wine<<
• 09 Ferrari-Carano Tresor Red (Sonoma County): Thick enough that you could stand a spoon up in it; but it'd be a mineral-rich spoon! $58 B+ >>find this wine<<

Welcome to the Weekly Wine Quiz!

This week, we’re continuing the German wine theme, which means long, difficult to pronounce words will soon be encountered. You’ve been warned.

As of 2013, the quizzes now work like this: you click on your best guess as to the answer, and you’ll be re-directed to the Local Wine Events website  (where I originally host the quizzes, via the LWE weekly newsletter, The Juice) to find out how wrong you got it if you chose wisely.

“Flurbereinigung!” “Godzundheit!”  The term Flurbereinigung refers to what?

A.  Dividing German wine estates among multiple inheritors

B.  German sweet dessert wines

C.  Re-consolidating German vineyards previously split under quasi-feudal inheritance laws

D.  The process of farming steep hillside vineyards in Germany

Cheers – and good luck!