Once again, Blogger has changed formats. If I could get my act together to post here more often, I'd go elsewhere. But until then, ah well. Here I am.

So while I'm here, singing the blues about Blogger (but hmmm, this new format actually seems pretty ok), I'll mention, again, the amazing consistency and quality of one of my very favorite California Cabernets. Philip Togni 1991 Cabernet with buffalo tenderloin tonight, partly because I've been noticing some fatigue on a number of '91s I've been opening lately. No danger of that here. In fact, I suspect it's not quite come into its own yet. Yummy.

(Since I'm in gripe mode, though, a word on the insidious influence of restaurant hegemony in today's world of food and wine. First it was true prime beef. No longer available to you and me, it's been reclassified to hide the dirty deed and what you now see on supermarket shelves labeled "prime" is what our mothers bought under the label "choice." The good stuff goes to the restaurants. Same with the better wines, as you probably already know if you're interested enough in wine to be reading this blog. So now the plague has spread to fish (the incredibly delicious pacific black cod a/k/a sable, which I used to enjoy weekly, is now reserved for restaurants, so sorry) and game (the better cuts of eland, buffalo and venison are becoming increasingly hard to come by). Next to go: fresh vegetables, such as they are. Yeah, well. . . )

And while I'm on the subject of surprises, Michele Chiarlo is a producer that gets little glory, but I stumbled upon the Barbera d'Asti La Court last year, and have been picking up what I can of it because, frankly, I love Piedmont wines but don't love paying the rapidly escalating prices for them. Right now, I'm finding the 1998 more available and very ready to drink, so if the '99 had a bit more nuance, I don't really miss it. For some reason, I seem to be finding the Barberas from Asti more interesting than those from Alba recently. And I've been finding them at better prices, generally, so there you go.

Everything from Europe is going up dramatically, so if you're looking to stock up, try to find stuff that was imported last year. The dollar/euro thing is just putting too many affordable wines out of reasonable reach. So, in the meantime, if the folks out in California don't get too greedy and figure they can get a free price hike out of the situation, westward ho, I say.