Summer 2010 Chairman's Selections

In case you haven't noticed, new Chairman's Selections are starting to arrive, with a couple new ones showing up in stores seemingly every week. The pace should increase over the course of the next month, with a total of 60 new selections expected this summer.  Read more

Alcohol By Volume

An epic BYOB wine dinner held the evening of Friday July 23 marked the first anniversary of what has become a semi-regular and highly anticipated wine tasting. Over the course of the last year, a group PAWineTalk readers and contributors from the western part of the state got together ten times to enjoy good wine and great company.  Read more

Fine Wine & Good Spirits

After years of first rumors and then promises of a "really dynamic" new LCB web site, visitors to the pawineandspirits.com online store on Monday June 28 were greeted with a banner trumpeting the impending arrival of a new web site. FineWineAndGoodSpirits.com was set to launch Tuesday June 29 at 9:00AM.   Read more

Over and Under

The Pittsburgh-area PAWineTalk BYOB crew met for the ninth time on Friday June 11 with a return visit to Sausalido in Bloomfield. Ten people brought thirteen bottles, each under $20 (or $25). Several bottles were finished, several were consumed more than half-way, but after three hours one was barely touched despite being open all evening.  Read more

Round Three in Philly

The third PAWineTalk Philadelphia BYOB tasting took place on Saturday June 5, 2010 at Fond. Five attendees, including one Pittsburgh-area interloper, thoroughly enjoyed eight different bottles of wine.  Read more

2010 Pennsylvania Wine Festivals

It has been an unprecedented four days at PAWineTalk. After attending the Pittsburgh Wine Festival for the last several years, we were invited to all three Pennsylvania Wine Festivals this year: Pittsburgh on May 6, Hershey on May 7, and Philadelphia on May 8. There were lots of new names and faces and many many wines. While we can’t possibly recap everything we’ll do our best to share the highlights.  Read more

Eight at Eight

On April 24, the eighth installment of the PAWineTalk Pittsburgh area tasting had eight people tasting eight bottles. The gathering spot was La Cucina Dolce in Monroeville. Perhaps it was fitting that the suburb that provided the setting for the 2008 movie "Zak and Miri Make a Porno" also provided the backdrop for a bunch of amateurs getting together once again to try their hands at imitating the pros.  Read more

Raising the Bar in the Rhone

The seventh Pittsburgh-area PAWineTalk BYOB tasting took place on Friday March 26, 2010 at the Bigelow Grille downtown. Thirteen attendees – including host Hawk and his entourage – enjoyed 13 different bottles of wine.  Read more

Help Finding Wines Reviewed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On March 25 Elizabeth Downer wrote an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reviewing many wines that are currently, or will soon be, available in Wine & Spirits Stores. We have a mapping feature which will show where those wines are located across the state. Simply go to our Wine Availability Map and look in the box on the right-hand side of the page below the map. There you will see the wines reviewed, and you can perform a search. The map is updated daily.

NOTE: Some of the wines reviewed are not available yet. If your search returns "PLCB Code #xxxxx is not currently available" that means the wine is not yet available in any store; you should check back in a few days. Alternatively you can set up an automatic notification where PAWineTalk will send you an e-mail when your selected wine is available in a given store. Go here to get started.

Spring 2010 Chairman's Selections

We recently had the opportunity to taste a sampling of upcoming Chairman’s Selection wines. If we had to pick a theme it would be “better values.” Boring perhaps, but Chairman’s Selections as a whole this spring will be easier on your budget.  Read more

Snow Couldn't Stop Cab-in Fever

Yet another February snowfall contributing to a record month couldn’t stop the sixth PAWineTalk Pittsburgh-area tasting. While several folks understandably canceled, the event went on as scheduled Friday February 26th at Palazzo’s Ristorante in Washington, PA.  Read more

Fifth Pittsburgh Tasting - Blind Pinot Noir

The fifth Pittsburgh-area PAWineTalk tasting, held on Friday January 22nd, was quite educational. As a group we learned three things:

• Some Pinot Noir is produced in Germany
• Some good Pinot Noir is produced in Chile
• Bigred does, indeed, have a wife

PAWineTalk 2009 Chairman's Selection^TM Winners and Losers

It’s that time of year when everyone looks back at the best and worst of the last twelve months. Here at PAWineTalk we didn’t want to miss our chance to jump on the bandwagon, so we’ve put together our lists of the best and worst Chairman’s Selection wines of 2009. We did, however, resist the urge to compile lists of the best and worst of the decade.  Read more

PAWineTalk V2 is Here!

It's hard to believe it's been three years since PAWineTalk went live. During that time we've added many new features, at times shoehorning new pages into an old layout. So it made sense to go back and rework the overall site design.  Read more

3rd Pittsburgh Gathering Leaves Everyone Blind!

Friday November 13 saw eight Pittsburgh-area PAWineTalk folks gather for the 3rd installment of their BYOB wine tasting. The theme was a blind tasting: everyone brought a bottle without disclosing what it was, and all bottles were kept in paper bags until everyone was finished tasting.  Read more

Fall Chairman's Selections Show Variety and Value

At a recent tasting of upcoming Chairman’s Selection wines to be released over the next two months, that fact that it’s a buyer’s market was mentioned again and again. The PLCB is both a buyer and seller of course, and is hopeful that they will find buyers for what they have bought. They certainly are bringing in a wide variety of wines. How well the mix of wines meets with consumers’ tastes remains to be seen.  Read more

2007 Chateauneuf-du-Papes in Pennsylvania

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is a charming village in the south of France which is well known for excellent wines. Located in the southern Rhone valley, production is subject to strict laws – indeed, as are most wines in France – about which grape varieties may be used, how the wines are made, labeled, etc. Up to thirteen different grape varieties are allowed, but in most cases the wines are blends of primarily Grenache, with lesser amounts of Syrah and/or Mourvedre. Both reds and whites are made, but it is the reds which garner most of the attention.  Read more

First Pittsburgh-area Gathering a Success

On Friday July 17, ten Pittsburgh-area PAWineTalk readers, contributors, and spouses gathered for the first of what everyone hopes to be many gatherings. Everyone brought a bottle (or two) to share with the group.  Read more

2009 Pittsburgh Wine Festival

The consensus among those who have experienced the Wine Festivals in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Hershey, and Philadelphia is that the Pittsburgh event stands alone. They point out that it has been held in the open and airy Heinz Field concourses – with great views across the river – since inception, and has always had a positive turnout.  Read more

New Chairman's Selection^TM Offerings Show Variety

The PLCB has been having a rough time lately. A consulting contract for training has sparked inquiries from state lawmakers and the Governor's office into how it was awarded; a plan for a potential name change for retail stores was leaked to the press and reportedly pooh-poohed by the Governor; several different bills have been introduced in the legislature to allow out of state wineries to sidestep the PLCB and ship directly to consumers; and there's been yet another call for privatization of the whole system.  Read more

Chairman's Selection^TM Improvements Continue

For all the negative press and hard knocks on the PLCB, they really seem to be trying to lift their game when it comes to Premium Collection wines in general and the Chairman's Selection program in particular.  Read more

2008 Wine Festival

Pennsylvania Wine Week 2008 has come and gone, the hangovers have receded, and now we look up and think…um, what DO we think?

In some ways it was better than previous years, in some ways not as good. As in the past, there were numerous public tasting events at various restaurants, in addition to invitation-only private affairs. Highlighting the week once again were the three Wine Festivals.  Read more

Chairman's Selection^TM V2.0

In the 15 months since Jonathan Newman (aka "The Chairman") resigned from the PLCB, the namesake marketing program he left behind has languished. Grumblings about reduced quality, a lack of exciting finds, and excessive repeat purchases have dogged the program.  Read more

Power Purchases

The LCB introduced "Power Purchases" last summer, meant to offer one-time deals for under $10 (read more here). We are now tracking the Power Purchase wine offerings here at PAWineTalk with a new page dedicated to them. As with the Chairman's Selection page, it will be kept up to date with the latest offerings in this program, provide an opportunity for you to rate each one, and show ratings entered by others.  Read more

New Rating Functionality

We've updated our rating scale here at PAWineTalk. We're still using a 1-5 scale, but now there is a "+" and "-" available for each rating, effectively tripling the number of ratings you can assign to any wine. The "+" and "-" are not factored in to the average ratings, so if one person rates a wine "3-" and someone else rates it "4" the average rating will still be "3.5," however when looking at individual ratings any "+" or "-" will be shown.  Read more

Sparkling Wine

There’s nothing quite like world trade disputes. Italians don’t like seeing the word "Parma" on hams from other countries. Portuguese don’t like seeing wine labeled "Madeira" which didn’t originate on their island. So too, the French get upset when sparkling wines produced outside the Champagne region of France are labeled "Champagne."  Read more

Thanksgiving Wine

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and a common question is what kind of wine to serve.  Read more