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Hey Buster! This Ball is in Your Court!
November 04, 2003

Last month I featured an outstanding value in Aussie Cabernet Sauvignon with the proprietary name of "Angus the Bull". TWC sold 900 bottles in a 48 hour period. Presently, I have a waiting list for 300 more bottles and hopefully more will become available. It seems the Aussies have a thing for marketing great wine values with "cute" proprietary names. If you missed out on the BULL, here is another high quality, wine value to consider!
"THE BALL BUSTER" - $15.95 a bottle!
PERFECT GIFT FOR THE EX- (or soon to be...) BOSS or SPOUSE, PERSONAL TRAINER, POOL SHARK OR LONG BALL GOLFER!
AND ROBERT PARKER GAVE THIS WINE 92 POINTS!!!!........
"....proprietor Bruno Tait likes his wines "pitch black and packed with stuffing" which is somewhat of an understatement. His deep ruby/purple colored 2002 "The Ball Buster" (a blend of Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot) reveals a knock-out nose of creosote, tar, blackberries, and cassis. The thick, juicy, in-your-face red in not for those who enjoy European restraint and delicacy. However, those consumers looking for a hedonistic, full throttle, thrill-a-sip beverage will enjoy this awesome wine....Drink it over the next 4-5 years."
92 points - Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate (Issue 148)
I will only receive 30 cases of the BUSTER - ORDER NOW BY REPLY EMAIL!! LIMITS WILL BE IMPOSED!!
ALL ORDERS WILL BE CONFIRMED BY INVOICE NUMBER!

ANNOUNCEMENTS!
The store will be CLOSED FROM 2 PM THURSDAY UNTIL TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11TH. (11 AM) while we attend the Worlds of Flavor - Mediterranean International Conference at The Culinary Institute of American at Greystone in Napa Valley.
Dunn Cabernet Sauvignon orders will NOT BE READY to pick up or ship until after November 12th.
The 2001 Lewis Syrah sold out in just a few hours! The demand for the Pax/Lewis Sets was overwhelming! Regardless of the Lewis Syrah, the Pax Syrahs are serious wines worthy of your consideration. I will attempt to honor orders for the Pax Syrahs and place you on a WAITING LIST. PLEASE ADVISE!!

Some of Your Wine Disasters!
From 1982 through 1997, we lived in Northridge,CA. We had a nice 450 bottle temp controlled wine room. It was full. That is until January, 1994. I experienced the Northridge earthquake ! In total, we lost 323 bottles of various collected items, including an 11 year vertical of Dunn Vineyards. Broken were various Cabernet collector items such as Ridge, Caymus, Mondavi etc. The floor was 4 inches deep in glass. some bottles remained in the rack with the necks sheared off. I even had one bottle neck stuck in the plywood wall. I am sure glad that I was not in that room during the 34 seconds it took to destroy a long time collection. Some survived.....which I made an attempt to drink by myself but had to enlist help from a few friends. We no longer collect, just buy what we like and drink it for "you never know what tomorrow will bring.."
G.P. - Colfax, CA
My mission was to organize my wine room, which was in complete
chaos. I had stored a rare case of the 98 Peter Lehman's 8 Songs, which
comes in a flat, 8-pack box. The case had been a gift, hand-delivered from
Oz, which was still sealed. Each bottle has its own unique label, depicting
one of the songs from Eight Songs for a Mad King. In the process of moving
the box, I heard a "clink" and thought "oh no," as I frantically tried to
ebb the flow of red ooze from spilling all over my light blue carpet.
Fortunately no one was around to witness my desperate attempts to strain
the 1/2 oz dregs so I could at least try the wine.....
K.M. - Sacramento, CA
Funny story (not really, but how else can I look at it). I was putting the horde of wine I bought from you away in my wine cooler, when a bottle of the Shiraz 9 (why did it have to be that one!) slipped between a larger than normal wooden slat opening at the top of one of the rows and fell behind a previously unknown open space in one corner of the cooler. I heard the telltale sound of a bottle smacking the tile, then saw the red fluid bleeding through the wooden storage shelves. As I sopped it up, I thought about sucking the wine from the paper towel, but thought there might be glass splinters. I think the floor gave it at least a 95 rating.
Could have cried
Ok probably did
M.V. - Granite Bay, CA
Bad wine story - my brother-in-law was staying at my vacation home in Carmel, went out to dinner/drinks, came back to the house fairly inebriated, broke into a 1997 Cain (thinking he could just pop down to the local market the next day and buy a replacement bottle), proceeded to drink it and promptly barfed it all over the house.
J.K. - Sacramento, CA


My wife has a gathering each summer of 5 of her best friends for a week at our summer house. They are all hard core crafters and stay up late into the night doing their crafts and sometimes enjoying some good wines. a couple of the ladies are true aficionados but the tohers will drink wine in a box and enjoy it. One night during this "girls week" outing one of the ladies called me at our home to tell me how much she appreciated my sharing my wines with the group. I told her I am glad she enjoyed them so much and asked what was her favorite that particular night. She told me to hold on and proceeded to return to the phone and read me the label from a bottle of '92 Leonetti Merlot (other than '93 Beringer Howell Mountain, the finest merlot ever produced in my humble opinion) I choked and coughed a few times and finally said I was glad she liked it so much and asked to speak to my wife, intending to read her the riot act for getting in to the "good stuff" with a bunch of ladies who really did not know the difference between a Leonetti Merlot and one from Columbia Crest. Before she called my wife to the phone she further told me that they all felt like putting just a bit of 7 Up with the wine really made it such a great "cooler" on a hot night. It was a good thing they were all 200 miles away or I am sure they could have heard the wimpering and keening that carried on for the next few hours even from that distance. I still love my wife but we do have some new understandings about what can and cannot be shared with her friends. (and yes I still am mad about it, Ha!)
B.F. - Redmond, WA
We were sitting down to dinner with friends. Knowing my fondness for big Cabs he was opening a bottle of Phelps Insignia 97. There were 6 of us, and only one bottle of the Phelps. Brad apologized, saying " I know I had 2 bottles of this stuck away, I just can't fined the other bottle. His lovely wife piped up with, " Oh, I used it to make the wine reduction sauce called for with this recipe. That should make the wine and the meat go even better together!" The silence that followed was profound.
D.E - Greeley, CO
After completing med school and starting my residency, I helped a friend of mine sudy for the MCAT to get into Med school (the year was 1982). He had a great business sense, and by the time I completed med school, he had several successful business ventures including being one of the folks who owned Pineridge vineyards. After he got his acceptance to med school he brought me 2 bottles of their very best reserve cabs. I didn't know squatt about wines, but did know they were special. I put them in a nice safe place to enjoy later. When that day came up I went to get the wine and found out it had been used as the red wine for a pot roast that had been served several weeks before. Ordinarily, I don't really enjoy pot roasts, but I had commented that it was one of the best gravies I had ever tasted...........
T.C. - Fair Oaks, CA

Passionate about wine!
Eric Stumpf
Proprietor, The Wine Consultant
8039 Greenback Lane
Citrus Heights, CA 95610
(916) 721-WINE (9463)

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