So what's the format, what are we doing? What's the order? Round Robin, how many dozens did you bring, Pat? What? No, I think, I think because then I- Talk about shattering illusions. What do you mean, he only picks one thing? Why don't we start with Roger, because he likely has a beer and it's probably chilled. Yeah, we do like drinking beer. And I could use a beer. Let's do Roger and then Chris, and then Jim and then Greg and then Pat and then Jenna. I don't know where this nonsense that I'm gonna have more than one pick came from. You guys are, I don't get this at all. I'm shocked and offended. I've been targeted and slandered. How many picks did Pat have in 2020? That was when we were all at home. Eight or nine. No way. Last year, you had like eight or nine last year. How did he have so many when he spent most of the year in Italy? Well, there's probably a cold open in there somewhere. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, and I am stoked because we are all gonna share the favorite, our favorite things, the best things. Our picks of the year from 2023. The gang's all here, and we're gonna have fun. Let's get started. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Alicia, I do wine. Hey, I'm Pat, I drive around. I'm Jenna, I do communications. I'm Chris, I do wine. I'm Roger, I do beer. Roger's in the house. Announcing very good timing on the camp app. Jim, communications. Jim, producer Jim's here. Yay, Jim. Jim, did you pick? I got picks, yeah, I got picks. That's the only reason I'd be on mic, otherwise I would not really be in the video. Are they Binny's honey roasted peanuts? Yeah, one of them is. I mean, I don't know. I think I ate more of those Utz's pretzel rods. Well, I've been eating the Utz hards. It's been a good, those hards are great, because Maloney's been buying a bag like every day. Oh, I thought you ate them because you didn't want to have to hear him talk. And as I ate them, you can't hear anything. That is an added bonus. It really drowns everything out. No ambient noise. Like a couple of times this year, I've had to be like, what? I'm sorry, I was eating a pretzel. Hey, we're passing on an off color beer. Is this Jim's pick? It's not my pick, actually. Roger stole your pick? No, he's not. But ironically, I saw his pick and flavor and aroma wise, they're very similar. All right. I drank some of this. Someone recently had this at a gathering. Was that you, Jim? Greg. I had it at a gathering by myself at my house. I sent you all a picture of it because I was proud of it. Greg, the gathering. Roger, your pick for 2023. In the spirit of Pat Brophy, I brought more than one. I've never done that. The first of the two here, we'll go from light to dark, but they're both hefty beers. How many in total should I be prepared to taste? Two. When I say two, I mean an actual two. Oh, okay. All right. I also have two picks. I have two too. I'm wearing a two too. This is off-color beer for dealing with your family, which I wanted to explain because off-color is having a little fun here in calling it a malt liquor. Don't break the illusion for me. I just want it to be a malt liquor. Yeah. This is a nod, I think, in a lot of ways to antiquated beer labeling laws, where if you produce beer in certain states, and it's over 5% alcohol, it had to be called a malt liquor or a malt beverage, which then doesn't really help the cause for craft beers when something says malt beverage thinks it sounds cheap. Because a lot of people, when they have malt liquor, they think of like- Mickey's. Mickey's, OE, Colt 45. So does this have a sweet visual puzzle underneath the cap as well? Ooh, digging deep there. No. Digging deep. I love Mickey's. Mickey's does not have Tardeuf de Bourgogne hops in them? Right, yeah. Can you imagine that? Tardeuf de Bourgogne hops? Yeah. What is that? It's Alsatian hops. Yeah. By way of whales. Oh, this episode is going to take forever. That's Cardiff. Cardiff, yeah. No more than three people on the show from now on. Just three of them. Once a year we do seven. Yeah. So shut up over there. This is the perfect beer for all of you. Yeah. Beer for dealing with your podcast goals. Shut up. Part of the idea behind this is this is something that is amazingly high in alcohol, but you can't really tell. How high? Let me guess, 12 percent. It sure is. Oh, super palette over here, dunking on you guys. I also knew that, but that's because I drank four of them. Oh, you took the four-pack challenge with this. No, I went interstitially one of these and then hopslam back and forth. Oh, I figured there was a glass of non-refrigerated vermouth between them each. Funny you say that. Off Color famously loves Belgian style beer, so there's some Belgian influence here in that they did a Belgian brewing trick, which is to use sugar, in this case an amber candy syrup that completely ferments out. So, you're left with mainly just a boost in alcohol, some flavor, but not any body. So, you can have a beer that's light and spritzy and soft and creamy on the tongue, instead of you think of high alcohol beers, a lot of times they're really weighty, heavy, rich beers. It's the secret ingredient in many strong Belgian ales. Indeed. That was a big tradition for people that geek out on old school beer. The holidays was a time when, you know, we sell probably more Belgian beer than any other time of the year. People love the format presentation. Many of them are in, you know, these beautiful 750 champagne style cork and cage bottles. The malt bill here is pills, Vienna and roasted barley. Again, amber candy syrup. The hops here are pretty minimal. It's some nugget. That's probably just bittering hop. And then Tardif de Bourgogne, which you never see this hop ever. And it's an Alsatian hop that kind of has a famously like floral rose petal element to it. But I just think this is such a creative and well put together beer. And as I try samples throughout the year of different things, and a lot of breweries really kind of like paint by the numbers. They're looking at each other too much about what are we going to do next? You know, it's a lot of IPAs that are basically the same thing, but just different hops. Off Color is one of the most creative breweries out there. And to make this style that has nods to both, you know, an English winter warmer with a malt centric kind of front end to it, this lift and liveliness of a Belgian ale, I really think it's just a beautiful beer. Yeah, I think despite the use of the brewing sugar here, there is still a round creamy weightiness to the malt in the mouth. I'd like to know where they took it from. So, you know, with the malt bill, I've made it 10% and the sugar, right, popped it up. There is a some sense of lightness, but I still feel like creamy and round. Don't you think? Or am I crazy? No, I agree with you. It's flirting on being kind of syrupy, almost, I thought. It's rich. And there's a distinct orange note in it. Is there something going on there? Or is it just I think it's just the hops. Yeah. I mean, it has a big honeyed character. Honeyed, orange peel for sure. But I also get that creamy texture. However, to kind of Roger's point, it is something that I can continue to drink. And sometimes with those weightier expressions, it's like, you know, maybe I'm going to have four or five ounces. But this one has enough lift, enough pop, that it still comes across too as quite a refreshing drink. I absolutely agree. I'm not trying to overstate it, but it like kind of walks this line of rich, maltiness and then a certain lightness on the palate at the same time. Exactly. And kind of like a lot of holiday beers, it comes across as spiced. And I think that's just the Belgian style. Without adding a bunch of stuff. Very good point. Eastie Esters. But does it have a Belgian yeast? They didn't say what, they didn't divulge, but one of these, they said it had some champagne-like tolerance. So maybe when they did secondary, they finished it with a wine yeast even. Once you go above 9, 10 percent, some yeast can't tolerate it, beer yeast. So they might have done like a secondary. I'll have to ask them that. Because I don't think it has, it doesn't have that Belgian yeast characteristic, really. It is a little bit of it. Yeah. Not like a- It's not like a clove bomb. Yeah. I think that sometimes makes it to me, at least mentally, heavier. Well, higher alcohol definitely can have a peppery component to it. And I think some of the pepper on the finish is probably from the alcohol. But that allspice note that's there as well, I think that's probably the yeast. The Tartiff de Bourgogne hop, they mentioned from Alsace, despite having Bourgogne in the name, slightly misleading. A few miles off. Though there are other references to that too. Is it a popular hop or are there other? Quite the opposite. Mega rare. Again, just John and Dave really having a precise thing in their mind as far as what kind of gentler, the florality is the unique aspect to it. But then also they do really love esoteric stuff in general and they love European stuff that's forgotten. There is an Alsatian hop that they've used in some other stuff called Strisselspalt. Much more common though. Yeah. Much more common. It's so good on top of a coffee cake. Strisselspalt. Strudel? Yeah. Strisselspalt's more herbal though. This, I think the key here is the florality to it. I mean, they love kind of Vinness beer. So they love blurring this line. I'm glad you got to try this because it's very much this element of dispelling what people, maybe you're completely new to beer, you're really young and you have this perception of what beer is. They love some of these old school beer styles that are very much as complex as some wines. Like they offer both in the mouth feel, the aroma, the flavor. Yeah. Definitely credit to Off Color for continuing to push the envelope, even despite their increase in following and distribution, etc. Sometimes you then play it safe and on short finances, etc. To make sure you're good, but to stay committed to the esoteric stuff is pretty cool. Keep rolling the dice, guys. That's the first thing we've tasted today, and that beer is great with food, and it might be a bit much to just shock it to your palate of like, here's a 12%- Right, you had four of them, it's okay. Yeah, I was just tasting Barrel-proof Cognacs this morning. Yeah, well, you're professional, I mean, but again- Says who? This- Entitled only. Like so many other beers, you got to try this with, it's perfect at the holiday table. I think they just partially designed that in mind. It's going to pair nicely because of those spice components with all sorts of things that are popular at both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, or at Monica, anything you're celebrating, with the typical holiday fare. Festivus. Rich, often spiced foods. This would be something I would drink before dinner for sure. Well, standing in my parents' garage. Just breathing deep. Overhearing some political banter inside. That's the kind of thing that requires a walk with your cousins before dinner as well. Wow, why don't we go get some ice somewhere? I think we're low on ice. I don't think they can smell anything. My eyes look normal, right? It's legal now, don't worry about it. Do we think that Tartuffe... It means late burgundy. Yeah, exactly. And it's harvested late season. Damn you. And then there's a related hop. Did you just Google this? Yes, I did. And there's a related hop. I was just going to say it off the top of my head, damn it. You got it quicker off the draw. What? I was saying that. I was confirming what you were saying. I hadn't said a word. I knew what you were saying. Damn you, man. Precoce de Bourgogne is an early burgundy hop. It's early maturation. Yeah. Precocious versus late. All right, next. Many of the most popular podcasts are guys reading Wikipedia. Stuff you should know. My other pick is, it's stout season right now, especially bourbon barrel-aged stouts have pretty much taken over stouts. You don't see many non-barrel-aged stouts anymore, much less unadjuncted stouts. And that is exactly what this is. This is a combination of two unadjuncted stouts. Here, there's a whole nother bottle here, Greg. A whole nother. Greg has a full glass. I think he's good. Well, I knew he would want a lot. I'm going to need that bottle down here. Yeah. I really wanted to celebrate that this beer is coming back after a long hiatus. And I'm also all about the barrel-aged beers that are non-adjuncted. This beer had a long hiatus? It did. Really? Yeah. Bell's Black Note is back. And of note with this beer, it is a combination of two different beers from Bell's. They're Expedition Stout. And Double Cream Stout. Indeed. Yes, you can taste that double cream. Good job, Pat. So the problem was that when they made this in the past, and it's kind of shocking that they didn't think that this could be problematic before doing it, they were barrel-aging Double Cream Stout, which is only 6% alcohol. One year in particular, they had a big infection issue and lost a whole bunch of beer. So Larry Bell was kind of like, oh, we're never doing it again, but. So you can't barrel-age it because it's so low in alcohol that. It's not really like, I don't know. It's just susceptible. OK. It's more susceptible, yeah. OK. You usually want somewhere around like 9% or so. I mean, unfortunately, Goose Island found out that there are certain strains of lactobacillus that are tolerant. But the believed idea was that back in the day, oh, as long as you hit a certain alcohol level, it would be safe. What they do now, which makes a lot of sense, is that they blend the two beers together. So Expedition Stout is 11, 10.5% alcohol or so. So by doing that, you're okay. So Bell's Double Cream, this is very confusing. That beer was brewed so long ago, it's pretty funny to think, that milk stouts weren't a thing. I was going to say that both of those, Expedition Stout and Double Cream are real. We've gone from Double Cream to ice cream. Yeah, exactly. So if you're lactose intolerant or don't want a really sweet stout, Double Cream Stout is cream in name only. It is not a milk stout. It's pretty confusing, but why would you name it that then? Well, when he made it, there weren't really any milk stouts. Also, it's called Double and it's only 6%. That's in the, yeah, again, it makes sense. Right. It's got a lot of malts in it. I think it's six or eight different types of malt, and it's just very rich and creamy. So it's called Double Cream Stout. Then Expedition is famously one of the first Russian Imperial-style stouts to be brewed in the US. It helped to revive the style. It's funny to think that it's just so ubiquitous now, and everyone makes a Russian Imperial Stout. But when they were first releasing this, there weren't many. Roger, just 20 seconds on what is a Russian Imperial Stout? Stouts brewed in England. Stouts have their heritage in England, and they were shipping them to Imperial Russia. Yeah. Catherine the Great. What is unique about that style? Stronger in alcohol and stronger in hop character, both acted as a preservative while it was being transported. So you couldn't just fly it over there, put it on a tanker or whatever. So stronger, hoppier, and then also roastier to balance out the greater hop character. Which of course gave rise to the porter style that you find throughout Eastern Europe. Thank you. Brophy jumped in, I think, besides just that he likes to interrupt people, so that we wouldn't go down any avenues about it. Guilty. All that having been said, that's a great description of the old school stout. In the last 10 years or so, Imperial stouts are basically just strong and sweet. So there isn't much balance. Hop is almost an afterthought. So when you drink an expedition, we often joke that the average beer nerd who loves pastry stouts would think it was like poison. Like it would be Amaro-esque level of bitterness for them. So part of the reason that I think this beer stands out amidst today's beers is that it's balanced. It has this hoppy cut to it. There's this herbal citrusy pine component that you really don't find in many Imperial stouts anymore. So I'm trying a million of these every year. And again, I feel like I work at a bakery, and I'm describing all the desserts. Like, here's today's dessert cart. And it's like, what was this inspired by? You know, like, and this is just so refreshing. It's like, started to get to the point, and there's people I know like this who just don't really even want to drink Imperial stouts anymore. And when I had Black Note again this year, I'm like, oh wait, I do love this style. I do love these beers when they're made more like this. Yep. It's a little bit chalky. It's a little bit roasty, but it's not like a big sloppy chocolate syrup. No, no, because there is sweetness from the double cream and a chocolatey flavor profile to it, but it is really well balanced. Yeah. Chris, can I try out a music joke on you? Yeah, sure. It's called Black Note. You'll notice that the label is blue. You also notice that the glass is brown. I think the label looks like the front of a Daniel Steele novel that you'd buy at CVS. It's a final record. That's pretty hot. It's a mysterious final record. It gives me Pirate Ship vibes. Pirate Ship. The screen says Pirate Ship. Blue Note was a great label. I know. Lastly, this beer, besides being amazingly complex, offering so much flavor, it's 11 percent. It comes in a four-pack for 1999. That is refreshingly affordable. And the shelf life, unlimited. I'm glad you noticed that. Yeah, that was a Bell's tradition. And I will say that brewery takes production very seriously. They have an inline DL meter. So they're constantly measuring oxygen. That measures how metal every beer is. DL meter. A body James DL meter. So metal. Got some die-ass DL! I don't get the joke. It took me a moment. I'm like, what the f**k is he talking about? I'm pretty sure Dio was on Blue Note. Ronnie James Dio was great. D-I-O was his last name. Dio's abbreviation for dissolved oxygen. Okay, for f**k's sake. This is our picks of the year, and you're talking about dissolved oxygen. So you can age this beer longer than most. You can age this beer longer than most. I had one at Darkler Day this year that was a decade old and is still dynamite. Nice. Wow, very cool. Nice. Belles knows what they're doing. Chris, you're up next. So my pick of the year, I tasted in Mr. Bill Newton's office one day, and it just kind of blew me away because it is powerhouse, but so focused and balanced at the same time. You must be talking about Bordeaux. I am not. A Cabernet, perhaps a Seurat. I'm talking about Robert Weil's Kiedricher Grafenberg. Spateless in 2021. What? Bless you. Kiedricher Grafenberg. So the Grafenberg vineyard is very, very, very famous. Vineyard in the Rhine Gau. Just if you can, I know you all can and all the audience. We have such a studied geographical audience. The Rhine takes a strong turn and runs East-West, and you have a lot of South-facing vineyards there, therefore, along the Rhine in this one stretch. It's loaded with famous names like- Sunlight, morning to night. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got all kinds of famous vineyards here. This is one of the greats from way, way back. I mean, it has a history dating back hundreds and hundreds of years, but the Weil family bought it in the 1800s. It is a Grand Cru site in the German regime, so they make GG wines out of it. GG. They make Grosse Skavakse wine out of it. So that means that these are top vineyard sites that are... and the wines have to be dry. But this happens... So not this wine. This happens to be a spate l'essat of this. This vineyard also... So a middle level sweetness. Yes, but it is explosive. I mean, there is sweetness upfront and just laser focused acidity on the finish. There is salinity. It's tropical. It's wild. It's like a wild ride. And it made such an impression on me. It's not for the faint of heart. It's not a really subtle Riesling. By any means, it is intense and it will last for decades. You don't normally hear intense paired with Riesling. I know. But this baby is just loaded with tropical fruit and it's got everything packed into this little package. It's really quite remarkable. I loved it. It would be great with spicy food. What do we sell it for? And more importantly, how in God's name do I spell this? It's in the show notes, Pat. K-I-E-D-R-I-C-H. Giederich. Grafenberg. Should give people the GS number. $85. They'll never be able to say it. It's $85, but it is a mind blowing Riesling. And we only got in the whole chain four six packs. And I feel a little bit bad about talking about it. But we're not going to be trying it today. It's going to come as an immense surprise that you can still get this wine anywhere it was sent to. You can have this. That is true. These are the gems that people do not know about that we carry, that we're presented and the buyer tastes them along, Chris is in or someone else is in tasting. And they are so phenomenal. And we still are given the ability to bring stuff in, even if maybe the sales potential right away might not be there, need some push. But this is really a gem. And just a quick note too, a lot of people just think of the Mosel and they think of Germany. And they're, of course, amazing producers and amazing sites in the Mosel. The Rheingau is probably what comes to mind, is like the superb Riesling location, especially some dry Rieslings. But as Chris mentioned, we're further south in the Mosel. We're going to get more ripeness, more intensity, and some gorgeous expressions. So no surprise that they're there. I mean, I am a big Mosel fan because they're delicate, but these Rhein-Rieslings can have real power. And if you've ever seen a ripe Riesling grape on the vine, it is a deep, golden, slightly mottled-looking grape. And it can get some rich, rich color if it stays on the vine long enough. In fact, there's plenty of beta-carotene produced in Riesling, strangely enough. In carots, the thing that makes them orange. Yeah, exactly. Loft of beta-carotene horn. It's actually the thing that metabolizes into TDN, which is that petrol note. Oh, how about that? Yeah, how about that? Okay. It has so much stuffing. It has so much dry extract, so much fruit intensity. Are you describing me or the wine right now? But also that balance of just acidity, it was mind-blowing. Okay. I fully support talking about a wine that makes you excited, even if there's only four cases of it and it costs $85 because it's a bottle of passion and you see it in Chris' eyes. No, he doesn't talk about his partner like this. He doesn't talk about anything like this. Well, occasionally a cold Polish pilsner at Shatzi's. But every once in a while, he speaks fondly of Sherry that way. I do love Sherry from Fino to Oloroso. But I do not support you not bringing a bottle. Next. He has a second passion. I brought a bottle because I wanted you to taste some. Chris, in all seriousness, look like you're going to cheer up. I love that. Yeah, you look real excited. Yeah, it was true passion. Yeah. I mean, it's a real obvious wine, but it's so well built. Like Roger talking about figs or real gooseberries. From the sublimely esoteric, we're going to go to something that is eminently affordable and just also kind of blew my mind this year. I've been a proponent of this wine since the day. Kendall Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay. Chris, did more of this arrive? No, but so I know that- Thank you for bringing it. You squirreled away a bottle? I know, no. I know that Baba says we're almost out, but we got 50 cases across. We talked about his pick last week, one of them was the red version of this. Yes. Yeah, the white's where it's at. The red's great. The red is great. Speaking of gooseberries. This wine is $8.99. It's our own- Now you're talking my language. Yes. One-tenth the price of the last wine. This is our own Binny's Vineyard Direct, Cote d'Irone Blanc, Val de Garrigues, the Valley of Scrubby Herbs. It is just- Of course. Mostly rosemary. It is just a remarkable buy. I don't care if we've already sold three-quarters of it. We've got 50 cases left. Everybody should be- We got more coming. There's more on the way too. We have a new vintage coming. Oh, neat. Very exciting. Did you guys try the new vintage yet? We did. It was very primary, very young. It was out of the tank, so super fresh, but so brightly correct and so expressive of white rhone. This one seems so regional, correct? That is ludicrous. This is awesome. A lot of times when you taste wine at a value price point from a very reputable wine region, you can find topicity a little bit, but everything is just muted and kind of like watered down almost, just quite simple. And this completely dispels that and somehow in it, you get the body, that touch of bitterness that the rhone is known for at the end. But stone fruit, tropical fruit, florality all kind of together. So Roger's domain wanted these tonight for sure. And what's so surprising about it is when this buy was made, we bought way more red because we looked at sales history of white rhone. Of course, then just Coturon Rouge. We're very surprised to see how quickly the white moved. And so yeah, we did go in on the next vintage. Because it's red and our wine managers know it and they're out there saying, you need to buy this. Yeah, that's the thing. I think that white rhone is a marginal category. Coturon is a big category. I think somebody needs to say Val de Garrigues, Coturon Blanc. Val de Garrigues. Did anybody say that? Coturon, I think you just did. But I think at this price point and with the backing of everybody who has tried it, this transcends the category. It's not even like people are buying Coturon Blanc. They're buying a great bottle of white wine. You're thinking about that Pine Ridge Shannon thing? Get this instead. You're thinking about Alborino? Get this instead. Yeah. You're thinking about, I can't think of, what's the white version of Zweigelt? That'd be Gruner, Veltner probably. Yeah. But I'm going to say, if you're considering any 899 bottle of white wine on our shelves, this would be at the top of the list. Agreed. Indeed. Pear, Kiwi. Jackfruit. So good. It's all there, baby. Jackfruit. I definitely have some kind of bubblegum-y kind of. Juicy fruit, perhaps? Yeah. Jackfruit. Exactly. Alicia's going to say no, but lychee and banana, right? Yeah. I think all of that kind of says jackfruit. I call that from the very start, but the first time I tasted it, I thought jackfruit. You know, it kind of reminds me of juicy fruit gum. In addition to everything that's said, just I love the texture of the wine because there actually is texture. The texture of this wine is so rare to find at this price point. There's weight, there's like this coarseness in a great way, kind of a waxy quality to the wine, so very good. Absolutely a dynamite buy. We should be out of the bottle. If we're not out of these 50 cases by the end of the year, it's just a travesty. Roger, I kind of want to get this tattoo. Ooh, that's cool. Yeah. Oh, so we got rosemary. Rosemary, thyme, lavender, all the things that go into Herbes de Provence. Nice. Oh, my turn? I actually thought more about my pick of the year this year than any other year, and obviously, I put a great deal of effort into these things. No, no, I thought about this for multiple weeks, and I wasn't sure because I didn't want to just pick something I had recently, and I didn't want to just pick something that the supplier offered us a good price on, or our exclusivity on. You would never do that. I would never do that. And I felt like I always had a handpicked scotch the last couple of years, I didn't want to be derivative, you know, if there's anything about me, it's not the same. Where is this going? No, so I went back, I went back through, I've written more Spirits marketing content in this like calendar year, I think, than I ever have before. Yeah. And I went back and I started going through all of it to find like, what was I like really excited about then, and what could I retaste now, and just be like, yeah, that was the bomb. So we're going to have Tealene Whiskey Irish Single Malt Handpicked. This is a 17-year-old Irish single malt that was finished in a lupiac cask. I really thought after all that, you were going to bring out like, Eggo sipping cream. I did love that Eggo brunch in a jar sipping cream. So lupiac, so turn like dessert wine. Yeah, so turn like dessert wine. Is it also from Boydrow, but from the other side, is that the deal? Other side of the river, right? I thought that was Barsack. Entree du maire. There are several. Cadillac, Barsack, all the sacks. All the sacks. Cadillac, of course, spelled Cadillac. It's probably Cadillac. Yeah. Holy cow. We had this before, huh? I don't know if we had it on the podcast before. So this came in, I want to say, in maybe like March or April. So there's not a ton of it left. It's on the website. You can find it somewhere near Binny's. We have maybe like, I don't know, 10 cases or something scattered around the whole chain. It's on sale right now for $100. Seriously. It's a 17-year-old single malt. Dude, okay. Enough cask finish that we have no other whiskey in. What a perfect marriage of a light, fresh spirit with a wood treatment that's going to give it like, reinforce that style. Yeah. It's got that beautiful botrytis fruit nose to it. I haven't even tasted it and it's gorgeous. Well, the honeyed part continues on the palate. The honey and the golden raisin thing is just unbelievable. Roger, you got to get on this. It's like they made Madeira squared. Not quite as dark in character as Madeira. Yeah, it's like bright and fresh and lemony pie. It's brandy-esque. It's making me think of Armagnac with how fruit forward it is and spice. Maybe it's the fruitiness of the tealing is marrying with some of that. Yeah, this came into the store in March. We've got, again, a handful around. No store's got more than two or three bottles. So the Chris angle, but you found some drugs somewhere. It's a little more widespread. It's $100 Irish whiskey. That's a limited audience, usually. Also, we're picking our favorite things of the year. And this is one that really for, I taste so much stuff and a lot of it is really good, but I did want to have something that was generally broadly available still, but one of the most memorable handpicks I had this year. There's this confected apricot kind of thing on the nose that's quite delightful. Yeah, it really shows that. Lupeac is a wine from Porto. Yeah, it's in the Sauternes style. There's a whole cluster of appalachians on both sides of the river, and they all abut the river because of the obviously because they need the moisture to get the grapes all moldy. Yeah, so it's a botrytis type thing. Sauternes and Barsack are the most famous ones, but there are a number of other ones and this shows this in spades. I think it's absolutely delightful. That honeyed fruit just lingers forever. It's an unbelievable value. If you guys remember a few years ago, my pick of the year was an Aberfeldy, I think it was 19-year-old that was a Sauternes casque that we bought like half the casque of or something. I think it went to Illinois and Texas, and I love it. I know, Roger, you've had it at my house before, and it's so awesome. I mean, this is what we- In comparison, though, this at 100 bucks, that Aberfeldy, and Aberfeldy is a cheap single malt, and it was like 180 or 190. I mean, we've been talking before about how it's been weird to watch Irish whiskey prices climb as quickly as they have. I mean, this whiskey is phenomenal, and you're paying like, what, 25 bucks more than some of the most standard bar pour in Irish single malt right now. Like, Red Breast 12 is like 80 bucks now. Yeah. So I mean- This is 110 proof on top. Yeah. Yeah. This is cash drink. Yeah. Wow. Doesn't drink it, right? It's so fresh. Yeah, it's phenomenal. Yeah, 110.2. Well, I think you did well this year. Classic example of people don't, you know, how many people know what that is, to know, oh, lupiac. So does it say lupiac on the front of the label? So I guess a lot of people are intimidated, and we're just kind of like, I think tealing is respected, but underappreciated. Yeah, still. Yeah, their output is pretty delicious. Yeah. Jeff still has that bottle of Ambarana from like two years ago that he brings out occasionally and it's amazing. Yeah. All right, well, I have another. That's your last one, though. Yeah, that's my last one. This, I did want to have something that was a little more broadly available in an everyday product. And this did come in only recently, but it's one of the kind of everyday product launch bourbons that has really impressed me the most this year. And this is the Remus Highest Rye Straight Bourbon. This is a six-year, 109 proof bourbon made from 39% rye. And it's an everyday lineup addition to that one. I don't know. They could have got like 10 more percent rye in there. Yeah. But it's like pretty high. Pretty high. I don't know. It's pretty high, I guess. This is on the shelf for everyday price $44.99 for a six-year, 109 proof bourbon. That's not normal. If it had a picture of a car on it, it would cost like $80. Exactly. Is it the sauciest bourbon you've had this year? Is it the spiciest bourbon you've had this year? Sleaziest. Sleaziest. I think this is delicious. It delivers the herbal and the spice and a bit of that lean character that you love in rye, but then there's a balancing sweetness to it. I love the high but not like throat ripping proof. And the six year age statement. We have so much $80 four year old bourbon now for this to be six years and this proof. This $45? And under $50. This is $45. This is awesome. This is around all the time? All the time. I don't have to like throw a little boat or get in line for this. We got it in and there's more on the way. This is an everyday line up. We got it in initially and there wasn't like a ton. It went to every store and then backup cases are arriving at the wholesaler this week as we record them. Is Remus okay? Where are they making their money? It's okay. Actually, they're selling industrial alcohol to be made into gin or something. I'm glad they're not doing that with this. This is great. This is awesome. It smells great. It's my new go-to recommendation at $50 or under in the stores. If you like a high rye and it's full proof and it's an amazing price. I mean, bourbon and rye lovers would love this because of that high rye content, but I think they did pick the perfect percentage rather than 10 more. Yeah, you're right. Okay, you're right. Well, they called it highest though, but it's like a Swiss- It's the highest of their offerings. It's completely. The Swiss are the highest. You're not sure what you're serving or you want to give every option. Yeah. This is awesome. No, but this is the best of both worlds for people that like bourbon cocktails and some people. Smarter people will be like, well, I prefer Manhattan with rye. Thank you. I am smarter. That was directed at literally the rest of the world. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I hold this two inches below my nose in the glass and I get this maple-like aroma that I would associate more with bourbon, but then there's white pepper. It's kind of nutty, too. There's a nuttiness that I don't often find in MGP products. MGP known for the minty herbal kind of character and then some sweet corn. When I first tasted it, I was like, damn, if I was tasting this blind, I could be confused that this was a Jim Beam product. It had that real kind of roast and nuttiness character. I have pecan syrup. Yeah. So for the mega whiskey nerds here, this is made at MGP then? Yeah. And they rebranded that as like Ross and Squib. Yeah. When MGP bought Luxco, Luxco's whole job was supposed to be essentially teaching them how to sell things. Yeah. They're like, hey, MGP doesn't sound good. Yeah. Well, but now MGP is like the hip thing. Yeah. Everyone knows they make good. And Ross and Squib, I won't say is the best of- Sounds like medical supplies. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But, you know, there was some name. Ross was the old distiller who was making rye on that site way back in the early 1800s or something. And Squib apparently came in there at some point. They make a catheter. Yeah. Yeah. Dissolvable catheter. Yeah. He was trying to convince everyone to move past leeches and bloodletting. It's the most comfortable catheter I've ever used. Barber is no longer. It's barbaric. I'm meeting with these guys soon to discuss what we could do better next year. I'll bring this up. I'll talk about the catheter for sure. Oh yeah. Well, I'll just say that now that I've tasted it, it's really great. It's sweet and bourbony up front and long and minty on the finish. It's excellent. That's excellent. It's really good. Excellent. Available under 50 bucks. Well done. Well done. Nice. All right, I have two, and I only have two. Whoa, whoa, you're just gonna skip the rest of mine? Pat has more. No, I don't actually have more, I'm kidding. We're gonna go back to you, actually. There's more stuff in this box, but they're not actually my picks, so, it's all right. We'll get it on tape after dark Belgian lagerie. Jenna and I are just gonna sit here and drink this Craig Elke 33. We're gonna go back to you as well. That's what I want, it's my turn. Yo, look at these adorable dudes. I know, they're so adorable. Don't they know that they're not allowed to wear red hats anymore? It's called Gnommegang. Gnommegang. Gnommegang's back? It's in cans now. In cans. In can form. For nothing. Yeah, okay, so. There's a gnome parachuting with an Amanita. Yeah, this. Don't put it in your wine glass. This is why we don't have seven people on a show at the same time. Yeah, so this is important. There's a gnome parachuting down with an Amanita Mascaria. I'm ripping shots of Craig Elke 33 over here. Yeah, so this is Gnommegang, Gnommegang. Which is fun to say. This bad boy is nine and a half percent. It's a- Yeah. My wife learned that the hard way. La Chouffe and Ommegang collab. She did a golden monkey. Actually, it's my fault. I bought it and I'm like, oh, it's a blond ale. It's fine for trunk or treat. You know, Jim, what I've realized is my kids have gotten older. You're either that parent that drinks at the children's function or the parent that like hovers around the children and makes sure nobody gets hurt. Oh, no. We're the drinking parents. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. So Jim, this is just like the off color. This is definitely like you've got the sneaky lift of incorporating sugar where you never guess. This was 9.5. This could get a lot of people in a lot of trouble. One of your wife fell asleep in the trunk. This one is even more citrusy on the finish. Yeah. I think it's a little like. This is way better than Roger's pick. Are they calling it a double or something? Just blonde ale. Yeah. See, that's the thing. It's called a Belgian blonde. A Belgian blonde means like 6%. Belgian strong blonde ale. So they left the word strong on. So this is like an homage to Duval. So remember that Ommegang was purchased by Duval Morkat group of breweries. So this beer is a collaborative brew, and they used to make it way back in the day, and it would come in like 750s. So the fact that you're getting four 16-ounce cans of this, you're basically getting it for the same price you get one 754. And it's a collab with Brasserie de Chouffe. Yeah. The Gnome Brewery. Chouffe is the Gnome Brewery with all the cute little like McChouffe, La Chouffe. I was there. I was at Ommegang over the summer. Good. I was just going to say, correct me if I'm wrong. I was going to ask if anybody else had been there. Much like Pat going to Italy, I believe he went to this brewery. Where is Gnommegang? It is in? Ommegang. Cooperstown, New York. Cooperstown, New York. Yeah. Well, baseball, baseball pizza road trip. He did a baseball pizza road trip. And breweries. That was just all we did. We did two breweries. And one wing place. One wing place. Did you bring your kids? In Buffalo. Yeah. Five pizza places, four breweries, one wing place. You hit up places on the way there too though. You're kids do not know. I would like Jim's. This is for Jim's kids. You don't know how good your father was treating you to some very important foods. I hope you took notes. Well, did you go to the fried chicken place in Oneonta, New York just south of Cooperstown? No. It's 20 minutes from Cooperstown. Did you go to New Haven? I did go to New Haven. You got the New Haven pizza. Frank Pepe's. He knows what it is. Do you think I don't know upstate New York all of a sudden? Come on. Frank Pepe's is where it's at. Buddy's Detroit. All right. Listen. Yeah. He went to Buddy's, got some Raisin Stripes. What I like about Ommegang is that it barely tastes like cream corn. It does have a little corniness. You can't talk about that. DMS? I would say it's more of a banana pear thing going on. I'm not getting DMS in here. I'm getting a little bit of, it's sweet. There's some sweetness, but the herbal hop character, I think, is just making it think corn. See, this is why you've never understood my tasting note of corn pudding, because apparently you don't know what cream corn tastes like. I also made it with two different kinds of oat, so I think it kind of gives it a nice mouthful. Point of order though, there is no DMS in this beer. No, it's just a flavor I put in. You're a goofball and I don't want people to think this is flawed. There's nothing wrong with it. It just tastes like a Belgian blonde ale that happens to be nine percent. Nine and a half percent alcohol. Which means it tastes like a four and a half percent alcohol. Yeah. So like if you're a fan of Duval, this is very much in that kind of vein. You're getting a four pack of 16 ounce beers that are nine and five. Roger is podcasting to himself right now. For 15 bucks. Yeah, this is a hell of a price. This beer is 15 bucks. So if you're a fan of Duval and cheap beer, do I got the thing for you. On Friday morning, Roger is going to wake up and listen to our podcast and be like, thanks Pastor Roger. You know, Roger, you're right. This is an excellent beer. I'm glad Jim recommended it, not me. So I'm complimenting Jim that this is a fantastic beer. Adorable can art. Love the usage of primary colors. How many did you have on Halloween? Three. Four. Yes. Wow. I really did not know. I'm going to say very nice job, Jim, and also a better job, Mrs. Rafato. Mrs. Rafato was a treat on November 1. Was the phrase in another thing ever uttered? I've met Mrs. Rafato and she's a saint. Very pleasant woman. Very lovely woman. Everybody in this room is the worst half of their relationship. Very true. Without even debate. Holy sh**. Don't you dare try to say Andrew's not the better half. I am not going to say. Wow. We're like the bad guys. Every single one of us is the piece of sh**. Duh. Oh my God, you're totally right. Of course I'm right. Straight up baddies. So last night, I was like... I do not want to get into specifics. We had friends over. I was so tired. I'm in bed listening to my audiobook. My husband also listening to an audiobook. Vacuuming the whole place, did all the dishes, right? Just jamming out. And I'm just sitting in my bed listening to the Romanovs. Can't even read your own b****** book. Okay, I assume this part is getting edited out. I thought you were going to say that you yelled at him for making too much noise. For making too much noise. Noise cancellation isn't perfect. This weekend, I played my new record for my wife, and now she's mad. She's like, make sure our daughter never hears this. So is she mad because your music makes people mad or that you spent your time making that? Oh, it's spent my time and also the content. Oh, okay. So both. Music to be enraged by. Yeah. That's the next half-acre beer. The next off-cover. Beer when Greg makes you listen to his music. Boy, howdy. Boy, you're just doing Roger's bidding with these picks. Next choice is a bit of a... Take my second label, Duval. Another excellent choice. A whole ton of Duvals, and then my Roger collab. I don't know what you guys are yelling at each other about. What's going on right now? A bit of a Homer pick. What's the New Whistle Binny's Collab, volume four? You know, I never tried this one. Of which Jim played a part. I was there. Jim, you were there. Why does it smell like coconut milk? It's very thiol-y. Is this the Oops All Cryo, your gummy? It's the experimental gummy. No, but there's Cryo Citra because every time we do a vote, everyone picks Citra automatically. So especially the first time we did it, we told people to pick three different hops and the majority of the votes were Citra three times. Yeah. So it's kind of a nod to that. Jim had to call, Jim's always been the ticker taker. I think Jen has helped him too, but he's compiling all these votes. This beer is fine. It smells like guava. It smells rad. Yeah. This beer is awesome. HBC 586 and ZH 105. Oh, that's it. I said coconut milk and in the back of my mind, I was thinking HBC 586. ZH 185 is not just your favorite hard rock station. It is also- I was going to guess amplifier tubes. Russian made. NZH 105 is not just your favorite. New Zealand hop. That's the big deal addition to this was that you don't see experimentals from New Zealand that often. When we were talking about with hops, how it's always usually about tropical character, Nelson Sauvin by far one of the most famous New Zealand hops, famously Sauvignon Blanc-esque, and the gooseberry note like this is gooseberry, baby. Gooseberry, real gooseberry. Yeah, the real gooseberry is the true. I think it's been my favorite of the four of our collabs with them. You can drink a lot of it and not get filled up like some of the other hazy. For being a gummy, it's pretty light. Yeah, because in the interest of full disclosure, homey historically not a huge gummy fan. And this is pretty light on its feet. Yeah, it is light on its feet. In general, the gummies are good for hazy's in that Chicago seem to take hazy and push it into the more juice-like sweet. Noon Whistle deserves cred for, they were one of the first people to make them around here and they always snuck in a little bit of balance and bitterness. It has a solid camera bag character. Yeah. Yeah. Like a candle open there and it's just really nice. I like it. I don't think the gummy thing is for me. Yeah, that's fair. It also has a cool label with all of our locations on the bottom. Very cool. Jim, good picks, both of them. Yeah. Big shout out to Noon Whistle's idea and I love it. Yeah. They put all our locations on there, it's super cool. Very cool. Very fine type. They've been great partners and they make great beer. Well, I appreciate. They give Roger a monthly dividend apparently. They did not. You're a dink. Okay. I want to go. Wait, real quick. I got to get a stinging. Jim, while I appreciate your picks, can we talk about how Roger actually got four picks in this episode this year? I just picked them. He literally just went out to the floor and picked them. Because Jim reads the beer buzz and has excellent taste in beer. He knows what's going on. They also share a cubicle. This is really a lesson as to why you should read the beer buzz. You know how you're going to sell more beer? Understand that the people who are interested in hazy IPAs can't read. So you got to find a way to advertise visually. So you do have a decoder ring of hops here. I love it though. All right. Easy there, Eggo Waffle. Drink your ovaltine. NZH581. Alicia, what do you got? What do you, actually, I know what you've got, and I've been, this has been a, I'm looking forward to this. A thorn in your side for quite a while. Yeah. You've finally won the lottery. So I'm pretty pumped about this wine. I tasted it with the National Sales Manager and our California buyer, Barbara, back in, I think, August, and it has stuck with me ever since. And some people around the table will know that because I have been pestering them to send our email to tell- Shut the hell up about it. We've had an email offered in the Hopper for at least three months for this wine. I have wanted to tell you people about this wine for three months. Whoever is responsible for that did his job. Holy ****, his job. This is good. Yeah, this is good. So I think actually for every year, one of my picks has been Pinot Noir. And I'm sorry about that if you don't like Pinot Noir, but I love it. And I just will always want to drink it. And so this is Pinot Noir, and this is from Santa Barbara, and this is from the legendary Paul Lato, L-A-T-O. And he has a cool story, which I'll get into in a second. But I first just want everyone to **** smell the wine, okay? I've never wanted to interrupt with a Simpsons quote more than right now. My name is Paul Lato. That's the four part harmony. Cool. This could be one of the most fragrant, aromatic pinots that I've tasted. It is leaping out of the glass with intense florality and red fruit. Raspberry. It looks beautiful too. It's like looking at a ruby. All things commonly used to describe me. Well, we're not talking about the pallor of your skin. There's like a spiciness under the fruit too. Oh my goodness. There are so many layers here. I'll let you all wrap your head around the line while I'll give a, what I'm sure won't be full justice, but I'm going to give my best Paul Lato background story here. So he was born in Poland. Under Communism. And yes, born in Poland when the Soviet Union was ruling the country and he fled in the 80s. Saludarnos. First stopped in Spain and from there moved to Toronto. And that's where kind of his wine, I'm not sure if it was before then, but anyway, he became a top sommelier in Toronto, very plugged into the community. And we got to bring this guy to Shottsies to drink some givets with us. And he met Jim Clenenden. Jim Clenenden. Jim Clenenden. I didn't know this was a Jim Clenenden story. Yes. Wow. Late of Obong Climat. Yes. And Jim, he went and visited Santa Barbara. Jim Clenenden kind of took him in and taught him his ways. You weren't exactly picking up what he was putting down. No, he sure was. I already made this joke. Who the hell is Jim Clenenden? No, he's Obong Climat. He was a charming man. Chris gave reference. He recently passed away. He was the owner and winemaker of Obong Climat. And I've seen that label. Yes. Obong Climat really was the first to make kind of Burgundian style Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Santa Barbara and really helped put really broadly the Central Coast on the map. Obong Climat is Santa Barbara, huh? And he is related to Turlotto, right? No. It was the third time making that joke, and every time it's gotten worse. The first time was good. Actually, the first time was during the meeting. You weren't there. I stole your joke. I delivered it. I said, Jim keeps asking if Paul is related to Turl. Okay. So he met Jim, but went back to Toronto to kind of finish his career there, went back to the Central Coast. Then he met Bob Miller, the late co-owner of Bien Nacido Vineyard, like the OG Vineyard of Santa Barbara. And he was his cellar rat to kind of just make minimum wage and start to immerse himself in wine. And then he started making about six barrels in 02. Robert Parker kind of just happens to come by. And he's like, I hear you are the sommelier who makes wine. I want to taste it. I'll hear you cut fat checks. And he only had three barrels at the time. Robert Parker tastes it, loves it. And he's like, so what's the name of your winery? And Paul Lato is like, I don't have a name. He's like, well, you better come up with one because I'm going to write about this. And that really was the start of Paul Lato. And I don't know the exact figure, but I think he makes probably around like 2,500 cases. So super small production. And he is just meticulous in his vineyard sourcing. So he is handpicking. So is your pick Chris in scale as far as availability goes here? So this is in maybe like six to eight stores. But again, this is something we brought in. None of that four to five kind of nonsense. Broadly available. We brought in in September and the people that know Paul Lato, they have bought this up. They like to get Paul Lato. But there's still a lot there. And this is his kind of entry level. This is his Santa Barbara County. It's called the Matinee on the shelf for $49.99. Paul Lato Pinot Noir. It really transports you into a whole other place. Yeah. Also makes excellent Syrah and Chardonnay. That initial 2002 vintage, six barrels of Pinot, six barrels of Syrah. That was it. So most all DTC, but we've been working on a smaller location. We got a floor stack at Highland Park. Damn. Get to Highland Park. There we go. So you've picked my curiosity. Thank you for picking the entry level. Now I want to know what the vineyard specific designate ones are like. Lucky for you. It's an Alicia pick, so she's on the take. Where's the next one? Next wine. Did we get only the Pinot's? We got some Chard's too. Well, sorry, out of the reds. There's a Chard name system and we have the Syrah. We did get the Syrah. Yes. How's the Syrah? The Syrah is fantastic. It's dynamite, inky and sultry. The thing is though, it's actually, I specifically wrote in my note, because I went back and look at my Tastiness from when I had all these, and I wrote, not inky. Really? Yes. So it has all of the Rhone-like characters of Syrah. It has that olive kind of smoked meat, kind of the dried herbs and all that dark fruit, but yet there's a lightness to it as well. I don't know that I used delicate too much Syrah, but it is. Damn, he's proud of that Syrah. That's 96 bucks. Right, it's a cult wine. It is probably one of his more, the cultish wine that he makes. What are we charging for this matinee pinot? 49.99. Oh, I mean, that's phenomenal. As long as you've worked here, you've just bludgeoned it into us that we have to pay 50 bucks for good pinot. So, Lato self-proclaims that he is taking his Syrah cue from the great Jean-Louis Chauve Hermitage name. The Roan Goat. Yes. If you want. Go to the Roan. I mean, they go to the... I had that, like the first time we were all on a Thanksgiving text, I text, I was like, this is what I'm having with Thanksgiving. And everyone's like, holy **** bro, if he puts pants on. One day a year. He actually knows wine and this whole thing is a facade. He's actually a sensitive, loud blowhard. No, he does claim the Chauve family to be mentors to him. He also loves the older styles of William Salem, their pinot noirs. And Thomas Keller is famously a big fan of the wines. Put it on the list at French Laundry. So he has the recognition, but he certainly backs it up with the wine. And wine, again, that is actually fairly priced. This is our American Dream Pinot Noir right here. Good? Mic up. American Dream Pinot Noir. Wow, it's almost like the email's already written and we just have the hit send. Sometimes in 2024. Yeah, squeeze you in the calendar in February. Only two months ago. You got to play to win. It's a Lato joke. Turlato. No, Paul Lato. So I have one more pick. Okay, Brophy. Y'all just enjoy that while I open this. Nice. Beautiful. I would have shot at it, Greg. That's true. Someone at Thanksgiving did open a bottle of champagne at my parents' house and it shot right into the ceiling. Amateurs and I told them how to open the wine. I was very proud of myself. Good for you. I had showed them how to open a bottle of champagne. Okay. So when I first was thinking about this wine, I was like, my phone needed in. They haven't sent me their check yet. Then I thought back to the last time I tasted this wine and realized, no, I'm not because it is phenomenal and many agree. So recently we convened a group of wine managers who are probably the most passionate about champagne in this chain. Let me guess, they all work in the city and love free steak dinners. The free loading city crew, I love those guys. All right, let's bring it back. Just because. Bring it down. Sorry, that was hilarious. Actually, we had Highland Park represented too. Oh, that makes it better. Well, then. We all got together, and everyone brought some of their favorite champagnes, and actually, they didn't bring them, I pulled them. So no one knew kind of the whole selection. We tasted blind. We blinded everything. We blinded about 20-some champagnes that were hand-picked. So we're going along tasting, maybe we're like, I don't know, 12, 15 wines in. And then we get to this wine. And we did not, we did not know what it was. And it was the winner of the day. And it was like, oh, my gosh, this is, this is a step above anything else that was pork. And we tasted stuff that was twice as expensive and half the price. And yet this really stole the show. And so for that reason, I want to show it today. Everything about how they make it is a testimony to the quality. So this is Pierre Moncuit 2008 Champagne. Can you spell Moncuy? Cause I can't. All right, we know. M-O-N-C-U-I-T. Yeah, I did not guess that. That's pretty easy. My little, my little baked one. Oh, wait. Grand Cru Milicime. Correct, so all Grand Cru fruit here. All right. And you remember in the Champagne region, Grand Cru, Premier Cru, these are all designates by village, okay? And Pierre Moncuit is a producer that is known for their Chardonnay centric style. And so this is going to be mostly all Chardonnay. They do a lot of Blanc de Blancs. And all in Le Maynille, the specific village, they have some five hectares down in the Côte de Cézanne as well, but the majority there. The age of these vines are 60 years old. They've been in the kind of great growing industry since the late 19th century. And then in 1977, it was taken over by Pierre's daughter, Nicole. And so her and her mother are very involved. So kind of, you know, women kind of leading the charge there. And all of their wines are single vintage. They are one of the kind of holdouts of wanting to produce wines that are expressive of a specific year. Is that why it's so? And also of a specific village. They really want that individual kind of terroir expression, hence mostly all their fruit in one village in Le Maynille. The other reason I picked this, and then we can talk about the wine, is that, you know, we've all been in stores recently and been helping people shop for champagne. And you cannot help but notice the price increases that a lot of these producers are taking. Yeah, this is a cool 86 bucks. This is, yeah. But for 2008, that's pretty fair. What's 2008 Dom, for example? Oh, and it's on sale for 75. 2008 Dom is probably not available anymore. Yeah. And I mean, even if that was the current vintage of Dom, you're looking close to $300. All right. I mean, you know, unless we have it on sale, but your vintage expressions, just standard, you're looking well over $100 at some of this, your house producers. So I thought for the price, this delivered exceptional complexity and just layers and layers of fruit and autolytic qualities, those kind of yeasty, brioche notes as well. So I am right that this is very yeasty and glaring, right? Very autolytic. And I don't think that you can overstate the reputation of Le Menil as a chardonnay producing village. I mean, these, some of the truly great wines. Is it all chard? So I think it is all chard, but I don't think they're not, they're not actually coin of Lungtumilk on the label. You're saying they don't make a non-vintage, right? Is that why it's kind of affordable? Like, they don't have a less expensive expression? Well, no, they do. Like, we do have their entry-level expressions. They might not call it their vintage wine, but they aren't making it from reserve wines. They are making individual vintage expressions. This is part of the increasingly visible move of growers to make champagne as wine first and champagne second. In a way, I mean, it is quintessentially champagne, but the idea is that they're latching on to a more Burgundian model of terroir and vintage specificity. Right. To show the differences of place and vintage, and to make a wine with lots of vintage attributes but also classic champagne notes. To that point and to Pat's pickup earlier, just the usediness, the texture, the richness, they also go through full malactic fermentation. This is one of the most... I've tasted a lot of champagne, but I don't put a lot of thought into it, where I will put some thought into when I'm tasting a red wine, for example. This is one of the most flavorful champagnes I can recall. It's explosive. Having layered. And like it's something else. Every single side of it, someone else. So many times when I'm tasting champagne, I'm trying to fight through the bubbles to think about what I'm actually tasting and how this is layered. And the acidity. Yeah. And this is so flavor forward, even though it is obviously just very sprightly and lively in its carbonation. This is the most flavorful champagne I've had in a long time. I'm dumb. I've always thought about champagne. This is like on a spectrum of yeasty and bready across to fruity and vibrant. And it's like all of those at the same time. So it's not, it's a spectrum. It's a three dimensional shape of complexities. Yeah, it initially really like kind of like hits you in the face with the yeastiness and that breadyness. But it's there is more there. You just got to you go back to it and think about it more like a good, you know, rhone or something, not like a champagne where it's like, oh, have a toast. Yeah, it's really good. Finish your glass. You can actually contemplate this wine. Yeah. And so many people serve any sparkling wine for that matter, unfortunately, to point to not think too much about. Yeah. And so this is worthy of your entire meal and worthy of, you know, just staring out your window. Worthy of your 75 bucks, that's for sure. You're making this shoe gaze-y. You're like, have you ever had this in a Kentucky Fried Chicken or a Popeye's? This is a 15-year-old champagne for under $100. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I think everything you're saying just points out the Venice qualities. You're picking up on those more wine-like notes. But there is so much classic champagne in here too with those autolytic notes. And even down to the finish that I find to be finely textured. I mean, you couldn't tell this is a wine of gastronomy. Right? It has a little astringency that's going to clean up fatty dishes. I mean, if you serve this with something with a cream sauce. It's so lean and vibrant, and it lasts forever. Jenna, you were going to say something. We need the stop sign for Jenna because she doesn't talk over you bozos. Well, none of them never stop talking. We all stop talking. What I was going to say was that we stop talking. It's true. We are not bozos, we are Swedish sausages. It wasn't going to contribute too highly to the wine itself, other than this was originally my first pick, and then I was like, we've talked about that wine a lot in our marketing this year, so I'll go with something else. It was going to be an honorable mention for me because it is just so good, and I wouldn't have done it justice. We have talked about Pierre Monclery a lot, but it's because they're so damn good. It's very worthy. Yeah, and most of it's been their sub-50 more entry level, which are still gunker fruit and amazing for the price. I would say more linear in style, more minerality than this brings, and then it says there's that added concentration we've referenced. We have given a lot of love, but it is well deserved. Yeah, I feel like across the chain, wine managers and wine consultants are really on board with this producer. This is widely available. We've mentioned it a few times, but it really should be the price for a vintage champagne. It should be emphasized how much of a deal this is. Put it in bourbon terms. 15-year-old bourbon, you're not touching for less than 150 bucks. Yeah, there you go. This is under 100. I think the nose on this is one of the most expressive. I've never really sat there and revisited a champagne that much just to smell. I also love how the nose expresses so differently than the flavor. The nose is definitely that yeasty, savory, herbal, almost like an aged Gruyere. It's crazy. Then it's bright and vivacious and expressive on the palette with all that fruit character. Yeah, totally. Quite a champagne. Also, it makes me think of how sad it is with things like Scotch, where Macallan just dominates. When you mentioned Dom the other day, there's so many people that just don't know the category. If they really treated themselves to something, they might end up with a Dom or a Krug or some of the very few names that people know. There's just so many great things like this where what a disservice that not enough people know about something like this. I would know to try it. Yeah. Let's not knock Krug, but also you could get several bottles. Yeah, you could get. Yeah. Come on, Krug is unimpeachable. The quality of Krug's non-vintage is unbelievable. Yeah, it's also like what? But it's super expensive. Crazy expensive. Well, I'm glad you liked it. Good picks. Yeah. Thank you. Who's next, Jenna? Sure. Oh, this is Jenna's. I was so ready to give Alicia a ration of sh** for having three picks instead of two. Oh, it was mine. I was trying to do the math in my head who would do beer and who would do spirits and try to even the ranks. Also, you were a wine manager. Well, yeah, that too. Okay, I chose the Forge Sellers, their dry Riesling, the Classique. We cannot have two Rieslings in one year. Well, you can actually taste mine, so. Anyway, also two different regions, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. So, this is from Finger Lakes Region in New York, particularly Seneca Lake for this one. It's a deep ass lake. It's one deep ass lake. It's going all over upstate New York today. Glacial lakes carved out by glaciers. They are very, very deep, so they don't freeze entirely during the winter because they're so deep. You stole my fact. Yeah, this is her region. Yeah, and Seneca is from there. You're the only one who knows anything about the Finger Lakes. More importantly, you let Jenna speak for about 35 seconds before you interrupted her. Talk about nothing. Lake Seneca is the deepest Finger Lakes. Alicia was gonna be the one to interrupt her, not you. Well, that's a... All right, Jenna. Those are all fair points. All right, I'll you. I can see. I chose this just because I really like this wine. I like a drier expression of Riesling. Most people associate Riesling with a sweeter wine. And this is just, it's under $20. It's $19.99 at Binny's every day, probably on sale occasionally. And it's just a nice approachable wine. It goes well with a lot of things. It's a good go-to, particularly for this time of year. A little bit of background. Depression meal pairing best friend. Yes. My cats really enjoy when I drink this and sing to them. My mom's on one again. This is pretty cool that we have a Finger Lakes wine on the list. This is a first for Barrel to Bottle, right? Yeah. Correct. Nice. It's pretty good. This is an awesome wine. People know the region, I feel like, but I feel like it's not widely talked about. Surprisingly, a lot of people don't know where the Finger Lakes are. It's great to bring it up because some people don't know where in the US it is. There's an upstate New York, south of Rochester. It's fun to highlight. It seems counterintuitive because it's a cold, forgettable place of America. It's a lovely, lovely country. It is beautiful. Unlike Minnesota, the famous land of the lakes. Pretty much the same. Yeah, but those like stink. They're all shallow. They freeze. They have mayflies. Do the finger lakes have mayflies? What are you going to do on that? Yeah. Do you know that the mayflies order is ephemeroptera, which I think is beautiful. Oh, that's great. Also back to the wine. Yeah, back to the wine. That is actually great. Because they're ephemeral. I'm talking about pucks. So this wine is brought to you by two people mainly, a winemaker and visionary Louis Barrel. Louis Barrel. Barrel. Snuck over from the French part of Canada. He's French. He's from France. That was intuitive of you, that you picked up on that. He comes from 14 generations of winemaking, particularly in Rhone, in Aginas, you may know of Chateau Saint Cosme. Saint Combe. Saint Combe. Swallow that S. That S. It's not there. Why do we need it? Chateau de Saint Combe, which is a lot. It's usually, well, it's been a little while since I saw the shelf price of it, but it was like under 40 for Aginas, which is incredible, but kind of bigger. And this is a much more subdued style of wine. They pride themselves on representing the terroir of the Finger Lakes region, particularly obviously Seneca Lake, where they're making their wine. This one is one of their entry level, I guess, if you will, and it comes from 16 different vineyards. But every year, the percentage of each vineyard is broken up to kind of explore and best represent that vintage and the land that it's coming from. So it's a great wine. You get kind of the minerality that you expect from Riesling. You get that slight aromatic kind of push. It is technically an aromatic grape. And then all of that really kind of lively acidity, citrus fruit, all of that. So I think it's lovely. Especially for 20 bucks. St. Combe Jiggingness, sadly, $60 wine now. Oh, $60? Well, there are also single vineyard offerings too. And he has both a Chateau Bottlings and also Negotiant Bottlings in places that he's not from. Single vineyards, over 100. And also $60 for that area. Big, big boned roms. I mean, these are- Big boned roms, my favorite type. They're really good, but they're massive. We won't lose sight of Finger Lakes. I think another thing there's mentioning for the neophytes here for people that don't drink Riesling that much. The stereotype is that it's suqa vasa, is my favorite word. Not suqa vasa. Not suqa vasa, now sugar water here. This has some lovely acidity and this is a reason new. This is the category if you've just had inexpensive Riesling that's way too sweet, this is not that. This is lovely. 100 percent. Barb and I, I think last year for one of our Thanksgiving Pexels, Finger Lakes Riesling, and the Finger Lakes are really doing all styles. You can find these dry expressions. Other producers like Dr. Constantine Frank, I think have great ones, Herman Weimer as well, and then all the way through to sweet wines. A great region, one that should be on your radar, and yeah, they can grow vinifera there because of how those lakes that don't freeze, that was mentioned by Pat, which I mentioned to him before the podcast started, delay bud breaks, they avoid spring Do you want to hear some actually interesting finger lengths facts? I was once, I know it's a shock, touring the Vendome Copper and Brass Facility in Louisville where they make fine copper stills for the distilling industry. They were telling me about a time where they had a custom still order to produce industrial chemicals needed for photo development. Vendome does photo in Rochester, New York. They will do anything that involves copper or brass. Kodak had needed this specific still to distill some kind of industrial chemical used for photoprocessing, but Vendome needed to alloy two metals together that couldn't be alloyed through any given modern method of metallurgy. Don't you have to do that in space? So they came up with, because it needed to be done under pressure, they sunk these sheets of metal to the bottom of one of the finger lakes where it was like thousands of feet deep and that had the pressure enough where then they strapped explosives Now that is an amazing story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take your finger lakes facts and shove them. Yeah, that's why I always say, mama, don't take my Kodakon away. Ah, you stole, I was the whole time I'm waiting to make a Kodakon joke. You didn't even include Vendome, it rhymes. You blew the joke to Kodakrone. We'll take your joke out, Roger, you go. Yeah. I do like to have two takes, just in case. Two takes. Amateurs do two takes. You know what else amateurs do? Serve their podcast hosts a shaken Negroni. What is about to happen over here? Just don't shake it, just go like this, invert it. I want him to shake it and get it all over his pants. Well, I know how to handle one of these when I'm incredibly drunk. We're about to get a Tucci Negroni over here. Listen, we're still talking about Jenna's awesome wine, which is going to be better than your Tucci Negroni. Are we? I think so. You know what this wine is good for? Drinking before you get to the family dinner. You sound like you're speaking from experience. Like three weeks ago. It is a nice aperitif style. No, it's quite bright and fairly nice and bright. It smells like lime blossoms. I like it a lot. I think that's what I really love about, I appreciate about this wine, is that obviously, as with all wine, it's going to pair very well with food and meals, but it's very nice on its own for drinking and singing to your cats. Are we due for a Finger Lakes episode? No. Okay. I think this counts. Why not? I love it. No one. You know why? Because a certain friend of the podcast has an Apple Orchard and Brandy distillery in the Finger Lakes now. Oh, hello. Let's see if we're ever taken to get there. Let's do it. Yeah. Dr. Dan Farber's got a second distillery in upstate New York. A trip? Jenna, I love that pic. Thank you very much for that awesome pic. I was actually at under $20. Unlike somebody's $100 champagne. $85 champagne. $85? $87. If I hope to earn any commission, I need a high price. There you go. Yeah, we're not making fast nickels. All right. Cue Europe. It's the final countdown. The pen has two more effects, though. No, we're not doing it. No, just empty it, that's hilarious. Are we going? Are we there? All right, Jim, what are you doing? Hey, hey, hey. That's all that's left. Just drain the beverage, so you better try it quick. It's fine. That was the most hastily shaken and non-measured Negroni of all time. It tastes nice, no, it tastes nice. Okay, so I made a Negroni, I passed it around. My own Negroni is a Negroni that you made in your basement. Yes, but. Shaking it. Let's get. This drink has been around for a while. Let's start. Man, there's no pencils here or knives. My pick of the year is, yes, a Negroni. Yes, I made it in my basement. Write into comments at binnys.com. No, no, no, no, I'm just kidding. So the gin that we keep on hand over here, because it comes in a 1.75-liter bottle is Bombay Sapphire. But the other two ingredients in this- Think that a new release this year? Are new arrivals this year. And one is a Peritivo Mazura from Capoletti. This is better than Capoletti. Straight from the heart of the UF. Featured on the podcast. More better than Capoletti. We loved it. I stopped drinking Negronis for a while because Campari took a 30% price increase. I can't justify paying that much. But here we are with Mazura. Jibois Capoletti to the rescue. It's awesome. It's adorable. I was thinking about what did I actually- It's a 750. It is a 750. What empty bottles that I carry to the alley the most? And this is one of the two. It's Mazura. The other one- To dispose of not to drink there. It's what I was originally- Empty bodies? You got a harvesting organization going there in the basement? We don't talk about that, but you're going to wake up packed in ice in my bathtub. Greg walks into the alley, full bottle in a brown bag, and then disposes of it within three minutes. All right. I feel like I'm making jokes about how drunk I am, so nobody else can. Making fun of somebody else's sister. You're not supposed to do that. Okay, so the other one is DiPadrino. DiPadrino. DiPadrino. DiPadrino. Not DiPadrino. We got the Italian guy. Way to offend our only Italian guy. So I bought a bottle of sweet vermouth. It looked cool. There was a bear on the label. I'm not going to name the brand. I paid twice this for it. Don't be that person. It was lame. Was it from Brooklyn? You bought something because the label was cute? I did. I bought it and I hated it. So there's a lot of sweet vermouths out there that aren't worth your time, and then this one comes in. Broph clues me off on it. He's like, it's cheaper than Gallo and it's better. And it is cheaper than Gallo and it is better. The label is very much like... Is this from Italy? It kind of looks like a pasta sauce label. It also looks like... You're Sprague. Greg, tell them what you paid for that bottle of vermouth. I paid $5.49. $5.49. $5.49. No, Bombay Sapphire is not. Mr. Brophy's approved gin. We all know that Missouri is great and this is a cheap, cheap vermouth, but it's great. In my month straight of regionalized vermouth classes this past summer, this was absolutely the star of the show. Everybody loved it. They're dry and they're sweet, are fantastic. They're by far the best cheap vermouth we carry. So while I'm pissed at the Spirits Buying Office for bringing in a not good overpriced one, I'm also thrilled that you brought in this cheaper than ever delicious sweet red vermouth. Delicious vermouth. So my pick of the year is a delicious aperitivo and a cheap delicious vermouth. Thanks for playing. Those are good picks. They round out this lecture. You know what? So if you just go every other year, picks of the people and unobtainium, maybe you live a balanced lifestyle. Some years your pick is a $1,000 port that no one can buy. Yeah. And no one can taste. And some years it's $5 vermouth. Dude, we joked about having my Infinity Bottle be my pick, but it was that pick like two years ago. Yeah. So thanks for picking picks and thanks for hanging out with us. Good picks, people. More importantly, who won the episode? Roger. What? He got like a brofie and a half's worth of picks. Nobody else has a pick left? I have an honorable mention. You have an honorable mention? I have the Great Lakes. Is it the new headphones? It's the new headphones. These are pretty comfortable. These are pretty cool. My ears are real warm. It's a little warm. I'm not even wearing them. An honorable mention is the communications department. We like snacks. We did a lot of snacking in this year. I think by far the most popular was the Great Lakes Chipperie, the Great Lakes Potato Chip Company. Great Lakes Chipperie? Yeah, that's its own economic zone. Yeah, one of our most well-known chipperies. The Kettle Men over at the Chipperie. Bold Sea Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips. Alicia and I. Your next pick is Great Lakes Bold Sea Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips. Now, Alicia and I had had these a couple of years ago and were a little disappointed in the level of bite on these. The sea salt wasn't as bold as advertised. The vinegar was too weak. Yeah, it was too weak. You commenced the letter writing campaign. We did, we did. Sears. Sea salt and vinegar, I say no. They upped their game considerably, I think, in all of their flavor powders, because their buffalo is pretty good too. Their buffalo is very good. And that was a little weak too. All right, Pat's his bag of chips over already. Are we after the outro music? What's going on right now? We've had many a table, many a snack table, many a snack drawer filled with cheese. That is not a snack table, it is for cutting signs. Ryan and I decided that the people who have to use the table to cut the signs get to decide what the table is used for. That's a fair rule. And it is currently the snack table, yes, for biscotti. But I will need to cut posters tomorrow. Can we do a synchronized crunch? Oh, man, you got a good one. Oh, the Holy Grail. There it is. Yes. Oh, that's going to be so good. Dude, how gross is a synchronized crunch going to be? By the way, shout out to Ryan, the angel of the marketing department. Ryan, she loves these chips. She said it was her pursuit for the year. One, two, three. Gross. So gross. This is going to be great. Thank you for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm stoked that we have so many amazing things this year and every year. We have cool jobs. Do you guys ever think about that? Pat's going to make fun of me for being like, I love you guys. Yeah, $5 vermouth. Yeah, it's great. Thanks. You told me about it. Yeah, I know. This is a self-inflicted wound. Wound? It's great. It's fine. Yeah, that shake in Negroni was fine. So anyway, thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle. I hope you enjoy some of these. I know that I'm going to buy two things. Which ones are they? Paul Lato. And the High-Ry bourbon. They're very good. Okay. And I hope you find something that you love too. If you love our podcast as much as I love all this stuff, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts. Tell your neighbors. Nothing else matters. Tell your friends. Tell your mom. I said hi. Roger's favorite Metallica song. Thank you for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle. Back in your feed next week, next year. Something good. Till then, I'm Greg. I'm Alicia. I'm Pat. I'm Jenna. I'm Chris. I'm Roger. I'm Jim. Keep tasting.