Wine Recommendations Please...
 

Hi all...
I'm taking my girl out tonight. Could you please recommend a good red wine, that goes well with a rare Filet Mignon?

I was thinking of a Merlot, or a Cabernet Sauvignon, however, if you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears.

I am going for romantic... candle light, flowers etc...

Anything will help. :)

Trying to "Woooo" her. :)

Just so you can get some damn pussy, eh?

Then why not try something original.

Nope, just for a good date. :)

I'm taking her to a nice hotel downtown. We don't get much time together, so, this will be sort of a "get-away" for us.

Get her to order the wine :P

fuck wine! that shit will just make her tired

you gotta break out the Smirnoff Ice! Girls love that shit and its like liquid panty remover!

http://www.dandiscount.dk/images/spi...noff%20Ice.jpg

Does the restaurant have a wine list avalible online? If so, post it.
In general, cabernet, merlot, zinfandel and even some of the sturdier pinot noir based wines will work well with filet, but you can't just buy by general grape type. Producer and vintage are very important.

For instance, if you are going for a california cabernet, you'd be wise to avoid the '98 and '00 vintages and go for '97's (one of the best vintages of the decade) and '99's (not quite as good, but still reliable).

How much are you willing to spend?

edited to add: Women also tend to like champagne. If you want to impress, many recent vintages of Dom Perignon (and many other prestige cuvees) can be had for under $100 a bottle if you know where to look.

Hmm... She doesn't know much about wine. Last time we went out and had some, she didn't know what to order, so she asked me to order. Can't remember what I got, but, it was pretty good. Like $12/glass, or something... Not too expensive, but, not cheap.

I'll pick some up on the way to the Hotel. :)

order a Bordeaux from the french list of reds

a good meritage is also excellent with filet M.

BUT they are expensive...

so on a budget get a California Cabernet or Merlot

Mondavi does a GREAT cab and merlot and are usually priced moderatly...

Heitz Cellers
Mondavi
Stags Leap
Rodney Strong
Matanzas Creek

are just a few vineyards that have Excellent wine and wont KILL your wallet

Oh and make sure she pays for half of it as well =D

No, sorry no wine list. I just checked.
I can go up to $150.00/bottle, but not much more than that.

Champagne is nice, but, gives me a headache, and makes me flushed (Irish Rosey) :).

Wine is the easiest alcohol for me to get drunk off of, and its the best, cause its a 'classy' drunkness. im sure you guys thought there is no such a thing, but I assure you, there is. Give it a try and see.

I just buy the $11.95 a bottle stuff, and chug it like beer. 4 Glasses gets me drunk! No bad taste, doesnt make you sick, nothing. I have tried the $4.95 a bottle stuff too, and that is just as good. I highly recommend this to everyone who finds pleasure in drunken saturday nights

A 1996 Napa Valley Cabernet is good.

This I disagree with. California has loads of overpriced, mediocre cab's and merlots. You can generally find much better QPR (quality:price ratio) in France, Australia and S. America. If its bordeaux, then the "second wines" of some of the first growth bordeaux Chateau are usually much better values than comparably priced California cab's. Examples: Les Forts de Latour from Chateau Latour, Carruades de Lafite, from Ch. Lafite Rothschild, Ch. D'armilhac from the makers of Ch. Mouton Rothschild. Ch. Lynch-Bages and Sociando-Mallet are always good values. These will cost you high $20's-$40's.

I prefer a good cooking wine like http://www.leesmarket.com/Shop/Produ...ID=05440000455 and at 2.69 a bottle theirs plenty left over for some Bic Macs and fun at The McDonalds Playland!

Or you could keep the money, forget going overboard on the wine, forget getting the most expensive hotel in town ... and do something REALLY romantic that you'll enjoy and remember about her forever. Money can't buy romance. There are so many things you can do that costs nothing and is far more romantic and enjoyable than any hotel or wine.

If you can land a Cakebread Cab, Iforget the good vintage, it is absolutely wonderful... usually only goes for about 90-110$USD....

are you jewish by any chance sir?

Metaform.. uh no. You'd rather uhm, pay $150 for Wine, $200 for a nice hotel room and try to call that romantic to try to impress the girl, when you can actually do something romantic that costs nothing, and enjoy it as much as she does and have a memorable night? Rigggghht.

Agreed... It's just been so long, since I found a girl I want to be "romantic" with, that I've forgotten how.

Most girls, are the standard McDonald's and a Movie.

This girl is special to me. Just trying to figure out some good things to do. I know she likes wine, so that's what I posted about. I have some other ideas for romance tonight.

Hopefully, it will all go well.

hehe, im actually with you on that. I guess it depends though on how special a occaison it is and how well off you are. If your making good money, and you never treat your girl to a nice expensive treat, shes gonna think your el cheapo grande. So variety is good, even if it is expensive once in a while

She's already impressed. This is going to be our "Get Away". I found this really quaint hotel, on the River Walk... very nice ambience, very mellow. Going to have a good time.

metaform - Girls don't really care THAT much about how much money you have or for that matter how much money you spend on them. And if they do, what the hell would you be doing with a girl like that?

Good stuff Voodoo, hope it all goes well.

I agree with you totally bro. Im just saying once in a while, if you have the money, its good to treat them nice. Not spoil them, just for a special occaison for a special girl, there is no harm. But i agree with you. :)
gonna get some sleep now. 7 AM here. goodnight. I just 'wasted' 3 hours on GFY wito9ut getting any work done. fuck

i think you won't have problem to find Ach.Clauss,Boutari,Hatzimichalis,Tsantali
for more about greek wines, take a look at greekwinemakers.com

if you have 150 to spend here are some GREAT wines

Any vintage of Opus (california)

Any vintage of Gaja (Italiano)

Any vintage of Chateu Lafite (will be closer to 200 or more and if french)

BUT 1 of my FAVS if you can find it in a rest. is

'93 or '95 Matazas Creek Merlot

It received MANY international awards and made the cover of Wine Spectator as Best Merlot

Greek wines???

too hot for good grapes

Grapa grapes grow there

Here are some reliable, higher end producers to look out for in that price range:

Domestic Cabernet:

Dominus
Silver Oak
Dunn (the "Howell Mountain" cab is an inky black monster of a wine)
Ch. Montelena
Caymus
Joseph Phelps
Beringer Private Reserve
BV Georges de Latour Private Reserve
Schafer
L'Ecole

I would add Opus One, but they are horribly overpriced.. even medicore vintages go for $150. Many of these guys make more than one bottling. Shafer's top "Hillside Select" cab run's $400+ a bottle in good vintages, but their Napa cab's are much cheaper and still very good.

Domestic Merlot:

Pride
Shafer (the '00 merlot has just been released, great stuff)
Duckhorn
Newton
L'Ecole lot 41

Anyway, if you two are relatively inexperienced red wine drinkers, I would recommend one of the domestic merlots. They are very tasty, fruit driven, and low in acid/tannins. Look for the '97, '99 or '00 vintage of any of those producers and you won't go wrong. All are between $30 and $70 retail, so should be under $150 in a restaurant.

All the CalCab's mentioned are great, but young higher end cabernets can have tannin (the stuff which makes your tongue feel dry) and fruit extraction levels which frighten off newbies.

If you like french wine, now is a good time to buy '99 First Growth Bordeaux. They are being sold at near or below cost by many retailers to make room for the much pricier (by several hundred dollars a bottle..) '00 vintage. I've seen '99 Ch. Haut Brion, Ch. Latour, Ch. Mouton Rothschild, and Ch. Lafite Rothschild going for under $120 at retail recently. As I mentioned earlier, the second wines of these chateau can also be very good.

Enjoy!

north Greece has the most suitable climate for wine and greek wine among the best carrying a tradition of centuries :)

Ktima Hatzimihali,1st Golden Prize in White Wine category (Wine America)
Ktima Gerovasiliou, among the eight best wines in the world

and many other producers from north Greece having excellent wine. The wine from South Greece on the other hand is of lower quality,but still good. Most of the islands focus on producing uzo and tsikoudia which they contain higher % of alcohol than wine. Tsikoudia has higher % than whiskey.....scary stuff.

Nice! Thank you all for your feedback! I have my list now! :) I will take some "cheat notes" with me. LOL
(Maybe write them on the back of my hand) hehehe

You know alcohol is not very healthy,,,

I prefer the high-pitched, nasally wine myself

You can't really fail with Chardonnay. Most of my girlfriends go for it. It's kindof girly wine but you can drink it all night long :)

Lately in Florida I feel like it's too hot to drink the red stuff -- so I've been buying lighter. Just for myself last week I got this at Albertsons and I really liked it -- $11 for 1.5L -- Barton & Guestier Chardonnay. (Soft apple and citrus it says on the back -- yummy!)

Not true -- the oldest man in the world recently admitted his secret was one glass of red wine every day. Good for your heart too!

I've always recommended Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon - I like it and I'm not a wine drinker

I would suggest this :

I prefer earthy big cabs, especially the South American variety because they are so good for so cheap =). However if she is not a wine drinker a big earthy cab may not be good.

If she isnt much of a wine drinker I would suggest someting like an Australian blend such as a Cab-Shiraz, etc. or maybe a light summery type wine such as a french beaujolais or something. Another one of my favorites that goes well with casual wine drinkers is a nice Oregon Pinot Noir ( I would have said that before I lived in Oregon btw :) ).

Im by no means a wine expert but I hope that may help a bit. Enjoy.

Rory
:helpme

Yummy.... this thread is gonna force me to head down to wine store lol :) .

Rory
:helpme

Well - purely in the interests of the board - I've opened a bottle of 2001 Jacob's Creek merlot - bit too dry for me... I don't think it's going to mix well with the bitter/Ameretto/ WKD blue combo that's later on...:helpme

If the rotten economy and Visa keep going at their present rate I expect Sterno strained thru bread to become very popular again.

Ask your grandparents they will tell ya.

it wont taste much worse than this fuckin merlot...:glugglug

Its getting there at some SF Restaurants. I dined at Absinthe in San Francisco a couple of nights ago, one of the better French restaurants in the city. A year ago their house bubbly was Gloria Ferrer, and Veuve Cliquot yellow label was the one above that. Now their house bubbly is some cheap spanish stuff, the 'one step up' is a similarly cheap chilean sparkler, and you can only order the Gloria Ferrer by the bottle.

Not all restaurants have fallen into darkness though. I went to Fleur de Lys 3 weeks ago and their by the glass house champagne is still Dom Perignon. :)

There is so much crap wine going around these days people get turned off very easily. This is the result of the wine boom in the mid-90's which occoured partly because of the "french paradox" report. Everyone went after red wines, especially merlot, and producers started churning out gallons of swill at $20 + per bottle, hoping to fill the demand at ridiculous profits. Now, 5 or 6 years later, the people sucked in by that initial boom have either woken up or stopped drinking wine entirely, resulting in a glut of substandard, overpriced wine on the market. Much of it is from California.

At those prices it can be very expensive to taste through enough wine that you find something of decent quality that you like, so if you want to find something good, pretty much your only option is to either attend lots of store tastings, or to pick up an issue or two of Wine Spectator. Even better, subscribe to Robert Parkers "The Wine Advocate." They will point you in the right direction.

I was lucky enough to spend 3 years in the wine trade, so I got to taste hundreds of great wines, and alot of not so great ones as well, on someone elses dime.

That bottle of Merlot was fuckin awful - just don't do it - I'm off for some beer

anything with a box..the females love the box

verry untrue

red wine helps to lower your cholestrol and aids in thining the blood

:)

Silver Oak all the way...

Look for the '97 Alexander Valley.

But just about any vintage from either of their locations is an excellent bet.

-KC

who would have thought Kman had an understanding of wine? :)
Cakebread is great in all available vintages. I just had a friend ship back a couple cases from napa.
Cakebread is great for dinner and if you're going someplace nice, it should run about 120-150 a bottle.
Another goody is Heitz cellars (someone mentioned this too)
A bit cheaper than cakebread prolly 80-120 a bottle but very tasty.

Or even a BV tapestry. I had the 98 at a wine tasting last night and even though 98 is not a great year, the wine was very tasty and coming down in price.

Or go French with a nice Calon Segur from St. Estephe (bordeaux)
prolly 110-140 depending on the yr.
Its a great wine and you won't get a better bordeaux for under 150 in a restraurant. The 1st growths are all way more than that in a restaurant.

can't go wrong there either.

This is exactly what I was gonna recommend. Either that or an Australian Merlot or as someone else mentioned Jacobs Creek. Anything from the last 6 years or so has been nice.

Thing with restaraunts though is that you've gotta depend on what they've got in their cellar so you may want to take the waiter's recommendation. Red is definitely the way to go with steak. I like plummy red wines with steak but like I say, ask your waiter. If its a NICE restaurant, they should be trained in which wine compliments which dish best.

Also, if they don't hit you up for too much cash for the red with the meal, then consider getting a nice light white wine as well with dessert. Rounds off a meal nicely.

Have a good time and enjoy.

i'm pissed - the merot was shite