Winebits 155: Thanksgiving wine, best wines, Kluge winery

• Wine blogs and Thanksgiving: There's a spirited discussion at Louisville Juice questioning whether wine blogs should offer Thanksgiving wine advice, and the consensus seems to be that it's kind of silly for us to do so. Or, as the blogger Thomas Pellechia wrote in a comment, "Bloggers are just like print writers -– every holiday, every year, comes with a discussion of which wine to go with which food or a list of the best. All this proves to me is that print isn’t dead – writing is." Which seems an odd thing to say. People have questions about Thanksgiving wine, and it doesn't seem untoward that I -- or any other wine writer -- should try to answer them. Unless, of course, we're not writing for people who have questions about wine, which is another question entirely.

• Wine Spectator's top wines: A tip o' the Curmudgeon's fedora to my brother, Jim Siegel, for passing this along: The Spectator is releasing its top 10 wines of the year in a cyber-fest of video and on-line updates. It's subscription only, but you can see wines 8, 9, and 10 with a free link through Nov. 28. Two of those wines are $100 each, and the Spectator notes that the average price per bottle for the top 10 is $48. You may draw your own conclusions from the pricing.

• The end for Virginia's Kluge Estate: The winery, one of the best in the state, has been forced into bankruptcy, and an auction will be held on Dec. 8 to cover its $35 million in debts. Kluge will be missed. You can argue that its owners, Patricia Kluge and William Moses, made myriad bad business decisions, but they also made good wine. And it's always a shame when a winery that makes good wine goes out of business -- and especially a winery that did so much for regional wine.

Comments

[Rob Garretson]

Tried to use the TrackBack URL above to link back to this post, but it generated some cryptic error. I hope the link I used here (http://www.examiner.com/budget-wine-in-washington-dc/wines-for-a-thanksgiving-house-full) is sufficient. I get the criticism of tired or trendy Thanksgiving wine advice, but side with The Curmudgeon and Eric Asimov, who says: "Stock up on great wine that doesn’t cost much and won’t be insulted by plastic goblets."

--Rob