Even the bottle itself screams: "Take me to dinner at the hopeful fiancées' parents house and impress the crap out of 'em." It stands taller than your average bottle, and has one of those labels that is neither modernly minimalist nor self-importantly faux-classic frilly.

Sounds like a great wine, eh? So why should we in the Golden State be ashamed of ourselves? Because there's so much of it left!

This wine was released as a $50 red that only cost $30+. At that price it's a Splurge Wine, but well worth the splurging. The thing is, no one did.

There's still a ton of cases of this beautiful blend at various retail shops all over, and they're priced to move! (It's time to make room for the '99s.) Better still, the wine has now been aged for a couple years and is way better than it was even a year ago.

So, not jumping on this gem has brought the price way down and allowed someone else to age it to perfection. Hmmm, maybe Californians shouldn't be so ashamed after all.

Cheers,
TSW

WoW
…really excited about wine

These days it seems Californians have plenty to be embarrassed about, but this wine may be the biggest. We think of ourselves as an open-minded lot, but Beringer's Alluvium proves that we are no different than any other book-judging-by-cover people.

This wine is so good, it should have never gotten out of the greater San Francisco Bay Area. But, because it's a '98, we all dismissed it as being unworthy of our money. (It was bad year.) What an apocalyptic gaffe.

Everything you're looking for in a special occasion, Bordeaux-blend red is this bottle. It's got loads of black fruit with black cherry dominating. It has oak that's as spicy as it is smooth. Its mineral notes are pronounced enough to remind you what "Alluvium" means (it's the name of volcanic soil -- think back to the week of geology your school crammed into that course called "life sciences" and remember the phrase "alluvial flow"). It has chocolate that comes out after it sits in the glass for about 20 minutes.