Welcome to my specific Whole Bottle Reviews page- this is where I will post all my Whole Bottle Reviews, so I just wanted to give you a quick write up and video on how this will work.

Once a week I’ll drink one whole bottle I think will be magical OR that is a great introduction to a region you may be unfamiliar with that produces truly magical wines.  For example, many people are not familiar with, say, Priorat in Spain, Northern Rhone in France, or Barossa Valley in Australia, yet some of the world’s greatest wines come from these lesser known- but not lesser quality- regions.

I’ll shoot each review in two parts. In Part 1, I’ll tell you just a bit about the wine and the region, open it and taste it, then give you my immediate impression, and prediction of where I think it will go. It’s always a lot of fun to see how my “sip and swallow” prediction matches up with my subsequent Whole Bottle Review.  It’s usually a good demonstration of why we don’t trust “taste and spit” reviews.  

I’ll try to keep the wine jargon to a minimum on my reviews. While I will use a few wine terms, this is more about “wine entertainment”- we’re looking for a magical experience not boring ass “wine education” you can find on boring ass wine sites.  I want to share the EXPERIENCE of the wine with you, not the technical aspects.  Besides, who cares if there are notes of “pencil shavings” in the wine- give me a break.

After I recover from my hangover, I’ll give you my full Whole Bottle Review, and tell you about my experience with the wine- was it merely enjoyable flavors and aromas, or did it take me places, did it take me on an emotional journey?  I’ll also recommend several more specific wines to try from the same region. These will be high end, fine wines…you are not going to get a magical experience from a $15 bottle of Bread and Butter.

One of my major gripes about the wine industry is they do a terrible job introducing you to different regions- they just presume you should know them. For each bottle we drink, I’ll tell you a few highlights about each region and their styles, then I’ll give you links to specific wines of varying price levels to try, so you can get a feel for the region yourself. It really is a lot of fun to read about these regions and there ARE some excellent “wine education sites” that are not boring, but the best wine education you will ever get is actually drinking the wine.  I can tell you all about St. Julien in Bordeaux, for instance, but I can never really convey the magic of drinking Chateau Branaire Ducru 2010 in mere words- when you drink it, you get it.

Too many people miss out on so many great wines because they just don’t know about the regions, and most people in the US get stuck in California wines with maybe a few French wines thrown in.  While I love both California and France, there are many equally great wines from all over the world that can give you very unique experiences- Barossa Valley in Australia, Williamette Valley in Oregon, Barolo and Barbaresco from Piemonte in Italy, Carnmenere from Chile, Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany, Amarones from Veneto, and so on.  Part of the real magic of wine is trying wines from regions you don’t even know about, so I will give you a proper introduction to these regions without boring you.  This is wine entertainment, with a little bit of wine education thrown in, but most of all it is a wine EXPERIENCE.  Tune in once a week, and you are sure to have many.

-John Alanis,

Certified Sommelier

PS I want this to be a real community of fine wine lovers where we all share our magical bottles with each other.  I wish I could do more than one a week, but health and fitness dictates I am relegated to one bottle a week.  Be sure to tell me- and everyone else- about YOUR magical bottles in the comments section, and feel free to be as descriptive as you want.  That’s really the only way for us to discover many more magical bottles, from fine wine lovers who have actually had them.