Our favorite friend-from-high-school-turned-store-customer passes along this article about a tasting involving a $2,000 bottle of Scotch. 

I found it particularly relevant in light of a phone call last week from Laphroaig "asking" if they could host an event at our store this Fall to pour some Scotch from bottles that go for $400-$500! The Wall Street Journal reported on the inaugural tasting of a 25 Year Old Laphroaig and a 30 Year Old Ardmore held in New York at a private club near Wall Street. We'll assume no TARP funds were used for the event, but if it comes out later that there was, you heard it here first!

We were definitely flattered to get the call, but in of course we played it cool and told them we'd have to think about it.  

Someday, when we have a store in the Napa Valley and then later again when we have one in the South of France (give us 20 years for that one), we will expect to have a friendly, neighborhood winery. Never would we have thought that we would have one so close to our store in downtown San Francisco. But a mere 6 blocks away from our downtown store is the global HQ of JAQK Cellars, a newcomer to the wine industry. For those without a gambling addiction, JAQK stands for Jack-Ace-Queen-King, and as such, the entire line has a gaming/poker/card-shark attitude about it. 

 Tonight, with a homemade chili, I had the pleasure of tasting two of JAQK Cellars' red wines: 22 Black and High Roller.

The Black 22 ($31) is made primarily of grapes from Paso Robles in the Central Coast of California. While it was a little acidic at first, it became much better as it opened up. The website says it has aromas of blackberry, cassis, cherry, and toasted nuts. Who am I to argue?

The High Roller ($70) is their flagship wine - a Cabernet Sauvignon - made 100% of Napa Valley grapes. The wine was definitely more smooth from the get-go, and like the Black 22, evolved nicely as it had a chance to breathe. The folks that joined me in the tasting immediately noticed the heftiness of the bottle, which I later discovered was an Imperiale custom-made for JAQK Cellars in Italy.

The bottle is just one example of the lengths to which JAQK Cellars has gone to attend to every last single detail. The wine itself, the packaging, the website, the gift sets -- not only have no corners been cut, but it seems as though no expense has been spared. The company makes 8 different wines (4 Napa Valley wines, 4 "California" wines), and while I can only speak to the 2 I have personally tasted, I eagerly anticipate trying the rest of the line.

JAQK Cellars will be hosting an event at our San Francisco store in the very near future...be on the lookout.

Talk to any tobacconist and you'll probably discover that they have a love-hate relationship with Marvin Shanken, publisher of Cigar Aficionado. On the one hand, the magazine played a huge role in the cigar boom of the mid-1990's, and certainly contributes to the romanticization of "the good life" as it relates to cigars to this day; on the other hand, his 100-point scoring system for cigars causes a great deal of angst around stocking high-scoring cigars and often overlooking or underrating little-known gems. I can attest to this having spent a couple years working in San Francisco's premier tobacconist during the peak of the boom, and our attitude was that the "best cigar" is the one you like best. People have different tastes & preferences, and while we can make recommendations, we would never be so bold as to say our favorite was better than your favorite.

It should come as no surprise that the same has been true of wines. While I have yet to work in a wine shop, being a betting man, I'm sure wine retailers share the same feelings about Robert Parker, Wine Spectator (another Shanken publication), and Wine Enthusiast. A friend of mine who used to be in the wine business, selling to retailers, would often tout their 93 score in Wine Enthusiast which didn't seem to carry much weight with buyers because they are always! "enthusiastic"! about wine! -- they'd give vinegar an 89! Of course, Robert Parker is the giant of the 3 in terms of reputation and longevity, and so it was he who was targeted in a recent article in Portfolio magazine about wineries refusing to submit wines for a score.

Money quote from Christophe Hedges of Hedges Family Estate:

"My dad calls high-scoring wines 'bimbo wines' because they're good for cocktail parties but not marriage. We want to make the kind of wine that's beautiful for the long haul."

Well played! And worth a quick read if you're a wine lover. 

During the holidays, one of the gift ideas I strongly recommended was a wine aroma kit. The basic premise is that it isolates the scents found in wine so that a mortal can tell the difference between hazelnut and almond by scent (rather than by candy bar wrapper).

If you can't afford a wine aroma kit, there is a free alternative: faking it. Writer & Culinary Student, Sophie Brickman, published a clever primer for those looking to talk a big game about their palate without actually knowing the first thing about wine tasting.

Having spent a fair amount of time in St. Helena with friends who grew up in the wine industry, I can sympathize. You want to sound educated. And you don't want your opinion shot down by a real expert (or purported expert). Perhaps every year, one of my new year's resolutions will be to come up with a new, default comment about a wine I can't say anything about. For 2009, if you hear me say: "the nose reminds me of clam digging in Pismo Beach", then you'll know I have no idea what I'm tasting. And it will be our little secret.

You can read Sophie's entire post here; it's worth the read!

Before I expound on the greatness of this gift, let me start by saying last Christmas, I was a cynic. We sold a lot of wine aroma kits, but I thought they were kitschy. The idea was cool, but the execution seemed inauthentic. If you've seen the movie French Kiss (which I was forced to watch on a plane a decade ago), there is a scene where Kevin Kline [+ his attempt at a French accent] is showing Meg Ryan the family winery in France. They come across an old wooden box filled with flowers and herbs that represent different scents you might experience in wine. Cheesy as the movie was, the wine aroma box looked cool. Which introduces us to another principle of shopping for "the guy who has everything":

Help him educate himself.

The guy who has everything probably enjoys fine wines, and already knows a fair amount about wine. He knows the important labels, growing regions, buzzwords associated with tasting, and he owns nice versions of the basic accoutrements (corkscrew, stemware, decanter, etc.).

But few gentleman can identify the difference between Black Currant and Black Cherry. That is what the Le Nez Du Vin (The Scent of Wine) kits are all about. Isolating aromas found in wines into small, numbered vials with an in-depth instruction booklet explaining where you're likely to experience the scent. The kits range from the 6 Aroma Kit ($40) to the 54 Aroma Master Kit ($399) with a few options in between. 

Last Christmas, the mother of a good friend gifted an aroma kit to him. At a dinner party I attended, they left the kit out, and immediately, guests started pulling out the little vials guessing what the various scents were. For a while, the Kit was the life of the party. Your wine-swilling gentleman may already have a warthog corkscrew or a decanter designed by a former Sommelier of the Year, but this gift is more than the sum of its scents -- it is a gift of knowledge (cue dramatic music).

There's nothing like 2 weeks of political conventions to trigger an insatiable thirst for tequila. Drinking games abound: take a shot every time Obama says the word "change" or every time McCain forces an awkward smile. Ten minutes into either speech, you'd be belligerently arguing for a "path to citizenship" for any illegal agave plants here in the ol' USofA. 

Fortunately, the folks at Tequila Don Julio recognize that the have's in this country don't want to be shooting their tequila out of a novelty lime green shot glass with a cactus on it. Rather, we sip our tequila from crystal tequila snifters designed by a renowned architect. That's how we roll in 'merica.

Ironically, the architect chosen to design the limited edition hand-cut crystal tequila snifters was...wait for it...Jeffrey Beers (rim shot). Beers is a world-renowned architect and passionate glass blower (aren't we all, though?).  His projects include The Cove at Atlantis in the Bahamas, Atlantis in Dubai, Jet in the Vegas Mirage, Porterhouse in New York, and many other high-profile projects. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Interior Design Best of Year Design Award 2007, Contract magazine’s Interior Design Award 2008, and three Gold Key Awards for Excellence. He was also inducted into Hospitality Design’s Platinum Circle in 2000. If you love architecture, his website is worth a few minutes of your time.

The glasses sell for $350 for a set of two, and a portion of each sale goes to charity. And luckily, there's less than 60 days of mud-slinging left before Election Day. We'll drink to that!