The last door on the left, at the end of the grand hallway on the ground floor, opens at the butler's touch, revealing a narrow flight of stone steps girded on either side by heavy, rough-cut wooden balustrades. No trace of the estate's elegance here; this is a working passageway! As old as the house's foundation, you suspect, when the butler turns on the lights, revealing the trace of hollowing in each of the steps. Testimony to the countless feet that have taken this pathway.
The butler--his name is Roth, and he has served the estate in this capacity for more than fifty years, as his shock of white hair and the way he seems not outfitted in his valet's coat but rather melded into it, attest--puts his keyring back into his pocket and starts down the steps with a quiet, "If you will follow me, my lords? My ladies?" One by one, you follow him down the narrow steps, counting as you go. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. There! You are at the base of the stone stairway, in a long, narrow corridor ending in an arched door that looks to be of thicker oak than the one guarding the grand hall. It all has the air of a Victorian drama mixed with a murder mystery.
"Not too many guests come down here," Roth says as he removes his key ring and selects a shiny brass one. "Most of them prefer to wait upstairs, and have the servants bring them their selections. They enjoy the drinking well enough, but they don't favor the, well, spirit of the tasting." The way Roth says it, you can tell he is pleased you and your companions accepted your host's invitation to tour the cellar.
Roth inserts the key and turns it. The hallway echoes softly with the turn of the bolt within the staid door. He opens it and pushes it wide. The creak of the hinges brings the smell of straw, oak, and a touch of dust on the cool air that caresses your face. Roth reaches inside and finds the light switch with a sureness of motion bought with years of practice, then stands aside and motions for you to go in.
"The Master's wine cellar, my lords and ladies," he says proudly. "Please choose whatever you will for your pleasure this evening."
You walk inside, speechless at what you see. Bottles lay in neatly ordered rows on phalanxes of tall oaken racks aligned on either side of the stone aisle. At the end of the room, you can see casks in their geometric stacks, silently awaiting their destinies. You breathe deeply, taking in the atmosphere literally as well as figuratively. One by one, your companions begin to stroll the aisle, disappearing here and there to check the contents of this rack or that. You, too, finally join them, drawn by the bottles, by the simple, elegant civility they hold.
Each month, hopefully more frequently than that, I will offer my comments on wines I have tasted. I am not a formal scholar of wine, and I do not claim to be one, but I have been enjoying the fruits of the vineyard for more than twenty years, and I hope that you will sample the wines I list here. At least, the ones that I think are good!
I use a one-hundred-point rating system of my own devise on the wines. The higher the rating, the better I think the wine is, with 100 being superb and 1 being carbon remover. My criteria are (in this order) price, flavor, and durability. All prices are in the Houston, Texas area, and are store-purchase prices unless noted otherwise (e.g., where consumed at a restaurant). The images beside each wine's name will tell you what kind of beverage it is:
Red
wines
White and blush wines
Dessert wines
Champagnes
& sparklers 
Brandies & cognacs
Liqueurs &
aperitifs
For reviews of other adult potables, I invite you to visit the Side Table in the Study, and the Tap Room.
I encourage your suggestions for new wines to review.
Diablo Creek Vineyards California Merlot 2000
The label of this wine remarks that it has "soft, enticing black currant, cherry and plum flavors." I wouldn't know about the particular fruit statements; perhaps my palate is uncouth, or maybe I'm just too much of an ol' Texas clod to understand all that high-falutin' wine talk. I don't differentiate specific fruits in wines, and honestly, I've never understood that part. Wine comes from grapes. That's what wines taste like.
And, must disagree about the "soft" part. I found this merlot a bit raw, just on the easy side of "harsh." It wasn't unpleasantly so, but it seemed to have too high a tannin level, something more in keeping with a cabernet than a merlot.
Still, it was by no means a bad wine. In fact, it was quite serviceable in its own right. The price is attractive, the wine has a deep, rich purple color (perhaps a tad too purple, now that I think about it), and while the immediate effect was, as I said, a touch raw, it did good service with a dinner of ham - and - Swiss casserole, a nice tossed salad, and homemade rolls. Would I try it again? More likely than not. I'll just brace myself for a slightly rougher ride than I've come to know with the Merlot Express.
George Dubeouf Beaujolais Nouveau 2002
I know, I know . . . I can hear it now . . . "It was less than a year old?" Well, yes, it was.
And it was delicious, too.
I bought this beaujolais purely on a whim. I was at my wine merchant, and the brightly colored label caught my eye. I was surprised to find a Dubeouf for under twenty dollars, so I thought, "Why not?" I hadn't planned to drink it until much later in this year, but Groundhog Day is my father's birthday. This year (2003), he is 86 years old, and we had a fairly large family get-together to celebrate the occasion. Well, the combination of the festivities and needing a bit more wine for same, and the brightly colored label, all worked to ensure that the beaujolais got an early opening.
If there is one word to describe this wine, it is smooth. If you would like another to go with that one, try richly fruity. Oh, wait, that's two words. Well, they're all true. The taste is rich, but in a warm and gentle way, not an overpowering one. And the sensation going down the throat is like liquid silk.
At nearly thirteen dollars a bottle, it's a bit more than I typically spend for table wines, but hey, once upon a time you could get three bottles of decent table wine for that amount. Those days are gone. For the richness and delightful experience of this wine, I'd gladly pay more. I am very happy to recommend this wine, and I hope you will enjoy it fully.
Los Vascos Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) Cabernet Sauvignon Colchagua 2000
In the past, I have not been too fond of Chilean wines. I know that the Chilean vintners claim to have the only "authentic" French cabernet sauvignon remaining in the world, since the French vines transplanted in Chile thus escaped the terrible blight that wreaked such havoc in France in the nineteenth century. (As an historical aside, do you know where most of the transplants that rebuilt the French vintages came from? Sit down and get a firm grip, all you hoity-toity types: They came from California!)
This wine has me revising my estimate of the Chilean endeavor--in a distinctly upward direction. Almost everything about this wine was perfect for a cab. We'll start with the color. Deep crimson with just enough purple to enrich the way light hits the liquid. And the bouquet: Full, warm, with a tantalizing aroma, one in which the tannin doesn't so much make you wrinkle your nose as open your eyes a bit more and wonder what this delight will taste like.
In a word--delightful. The tannin level is one of the best I've ever experienced, giving one that pleasant shock, that quickening of the taste buds and tightening of the mouth in a momentary pursing of the lips. And then the full body of the wine glides over your tongue and you enjoy a rich cascade of the wine flavor that warms you from mouth to stomach and from inside out in every direction.
I want to thank my friend Doug for this wonderful gift. I hope you will find this one and give it a try. It really does deserve the Rothschild appellation; I think the old Baron, bless his soul, would be very happy to see it carrying his name.
I heartily recommend my favorite wine merchant, Spec's.
"Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy
stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."
1 Timothy 5:23
"Nothing equals the joy of the drinker, except the joy of the wine being drunk."
French proverb