DISQUS

With a cellar of 1000+ I qualify as a geek, I suppose. I like to think of myself as passionate about wine, if not a little obsessed! Anyone talking of `brands` or even `Bordeaux` does not need to know anything about vintage. As most people buy wine, take it home, then drink it straight away any small differences will never be detected by them. Any obsessed passionate geek can TASTE and SMELL differences in the wines they drink. I sat next to a guy at a blind tasting who stated that a wonderful sweet wine (loved by 12 other obsessed people sat there) had been chapitalised, and he was right, I know because I bought the sugar for the winemaker! (It`s illegal to add sugar in the region of France but the VINTAGE had diabolical weather). So, if you want to know about a wine you need to talk to locals, at least, to appellation level, preferably village level and, for perfection, to be with the wine maker at harvest time. I`ve seen one producer loose most of his crop to hail, whilst the guy next door made superb wine as his vineyard was untouched.
The fact that most wines are sold at a level that ranges between chemical to nice glugging wine is irrelevant to any site claiming some KNOWLEDGE of wine, lets face it most people dont like Picasso or classical music, does this make Robert Mitchum and Madonna greater artists? Theres not much point in learning too much about run of the mill wines as super market shelves will provide you with hundreds of types that fade from the memory pretty quickly. A 25 year old bottle from your own cellar (mine`s literally located in a toilet!) that is in perfect condition takes wine drinking to great sensual hights. Thanks for reading this rant, I can`t easily stop talking wine!

The `vintage` of the Solera is the year it was started, there will be only a tiny amount of wine (if any)from that year in your bottle. I have drunk Madeira soleras dating back to the early 1800`s!