Welcome to my Tasting Notes Archive, a compendium of notes on individual wines that have been culled from my essays and reports and arranged alphabetically by category. This is by far the least masochistic choice, as all the entries aren't too large and are ordered in a fairly logical fashion (alphabetically by producer name).

All of my notes, of course, reflect only my own experiences and preferences (individual mileage may vary), and even my own tastes have shifted mightily in the past couple of years; I look back on some of the wines I quaffed eagerly and raved about when I was in my winegeek swaddling clothes and cringe a bit, but changing tastes are all part of the fun, so they're still there as well, dated for reference (so please don't email me mocking my once liking Beringer Chardonnay; we all have skeletons in our closets, don't we?).

Generic honorifics like "Château" and "Domaine" don't count, alphabetically speaking, nor do articles like 'the' and 'le' or 'la.' Thus Château La Dominique is under 'D' and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is under 'R.'

In case a wine is a blend, I'll list it in order of the grape that composes the lion's share of the final blend (the first grape listed in the name of the wine). For instance, Penfolds Semillon-Chardonnay goes under 'Semillon'; the same winery's Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz goes under 'Cabernet Sauvignon' and so on, unless I just get confused and list them in both places. California 'Meritage' (Bordeaux-style blends of cabernet, merlot, et al.) wines go under Merlot & blends thereof because I say so. Bordeaux, though also usually Cabernet or Merlot, has its own special section because... well, just because. Confused yet? Good, 'cause it gets worse.

French red wines from areas outside the glamor regions (Burgundy, Bordeaux, Loire, et al.) are filed under 'French Regional Reds' even if they are made from identifiable grape varieties, except for vins du pays, which are usually labeled varietally and would thus be under 'cabernet sauvignon,' and so on. A zinfandel from Italy? I'll probably just throw up my hands and put the note under both 'Zinfandel' and 'Italian Red Wines.' Someday I'll come up with a simpler way of sorting everything out, but that day has not dawned yet.

A note on pricing: The prices that I cite for new releases are usually Manhattan prices, which seem to be anywhere from ten to twenty percent higher than anywhere else in the land, so please judge accordingly. If I don't know the price or a price is not applicable due to the wine being off the market or the bottle being something shared at a jeebus, I'll a) take a wild guess at what the wine would cost you now at retail or on the secondary market, b) give the wine's price on release or c) give up and just leave it blank. The parenthetical after the price (Cult Madness) indicates the Essay from which the note was harvested.

So here then are the pure, unadorned Tasting Notes. Just click on the category you want to investigate and go to town: