While I’m in the Cheesy End-of-Year recap mood (this is the last one on 2008, I swear), and enjoying the remainder of my holiday break with my family, I thought I’d offer up my Top 5 Chateau Petrogasm reviews of 2008.

If you’re not familiar with the Chateau, you can read my take on their back story. If you love wine, you need to be checking out Chateau Petrogasm from time to time.

Anyway, here are my top picks from my 2008 CP submissions:

5) `97 Chateau Leoville Barton

This wine was so refined and pleasant, it reminded me of a stately butler with impeccable manners. Ok, so I’m weird.

4) `04 Titus Chardonnay

Oak, oak and more oak. And maybe some more oak thrown in for good measure.

3) `00 Chateau de Sales

Well, this one generated quite a stir. I swear that I did not intend to portray a mouse humping berries. And yet, as we used to say in undergrad English Lit, “the subtext is there, man!” What I was trying to portray was that there was some brett lurking in all that berry fruit and… ah, just forget it…

2) `00 lo Zoccolaio Single Estate Barolo

Nothing says sexy girl in a dark smokey bar quite like Barolo. At least, that’s how I saw it, especially after drinking three glasses of said Barolo.

And my Number 1 pick from 2008:

1) `06 Yellowtail Shiraz/Grenache

This one also generated a lot of discussion. I won’t tell you here what I thought about this wine, as a picture is, after all, worth a thousand words. But I will say that, when poured during a practice blind tasting I took for one of my WSET exams, I barely picked out that it was a Shiraz. Just sayin’…

Cheers!
(images: ChateauPetrogasm.com)