Champange, Recoltant

I mentioned having a great bottle of champagne over new years, it happened to be this one: Pierre Peters Cuvee Special 1999 Brut Blanc de Blanc. Pierre Peters is a recoltant-manipulant as opposed to a negociant. A recoltant-manipulant will grow his own grape to make his champagne. This gives him better controlled over what is going to be part of his creation. A negocians will buy his grape in bulks from grower to make their champagne. Such famous negociant would be Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and other mainstream champagne found at every supermarket. A recoltant-manipulant will have a smaller production then a negociant and will not be able production like a negociant does. This assures the highest quality of champagne (for the producers who love what they do), and usually gives the champagne certain softness and refinement only found is very expensive champagne for a fraction of the price (more or less). This champagne's complexity was impressive; the multitudes of different tastes were rolling of your tongue like models down the runway. The finish didn't have an end and left your mouth cleaned and salivating for more. It took a worthwhile half an hour to truly express itself, and when it did it wouldn't stop.

Robert Parker's Point System

This man here, next to my little brother Kevin is Robert Parker. For those who aren't familiar with his work, Mr. Parker is a wine critic whose point scale to rate wines has been widely accepted as one of the best in the market. His contribution to making wine mainstream in America is unprecedented.
While I applaud his work at what he has done for the American wine market I also condemn him for making buying wine a little too easy. I have personally experienced the influence he has on the American wine drinker, so much that some tasting dinner have become nothing more than a Robert Parker points competition. If someone makes a decision to buy a wine based solely on what number of points Robert Parker has attributed them in order to impress their entourage, then I think that person should stick to expensive cognacs or even beer. Mr. Parker's point scale should be used as final decision tool, you should already know what wine styles, grapes or region you are interested in and then use Mr. Parker’s point scale to decide which you would pick. In no way should you ever try to use his point scale to compare wines that are in any way different (except the producer...maybe). Comparing a New Zealand Pinot Gris to a California Cab makes no sense. No matter what number of points they have received, one cannot be better than the other, or the same for that matter, they are just too different.
Another aspect of his rating that I think is flawed is that it is not personal enough. No one has the same pallet, we all feel and taste things differently, so you might rate a wine an 88 that Mr. Parker would give a 90 or an 85.
The last issue I have with this scale is that it implies that there is a perfect wine out there, king of all, which will receive 100 points and deemed the best wine ever. Or will there? If no wine is perfect than how can you measure the rest of them? If you don't know what a 100 points wine is, then how do you know what a 90 points wine is? I personally think that there is a perfect wine, for every climate, every blend, and every region.

To me the perfect wine is the wine that I enjoy now, whenever, where ever. The one that will adapt best to the current situation, it might be a 2 Euro Rose that I bought at the local supermarket and I'm enjoying with my friends, or the $88 dollar bottle of champagne I had with my wife on New Year's Eve.
Wine should never be a competition, there shall never be "winner", only bottles that come alive and die, with the rhythm of you bottle opener and at the pace of your elbow, giving you all that they've got for your enjoyment, no matter what it is.

Rhone, Rhone, and more Rhone

I want to take time, on this beautiful Friday, to talk about my favorite wine in my favorite region. Three summers ago I found myself in this beautiful region again, this time under circumstances that went beyond my power, with two of my cousins who are wine enthusiasts themselves. We were driving up to my Aunt and Uncle’s farm in the region of Macon. By chance my older cousin whose car we were in, wanted to bring back some good wines from the Rhone valley, and I happened to know a few of them. One of the stops we made, one of the many stops, was in Vacqueyras at the Sang des Cailloux vineyard.

This wine is my favorite because it is the one that I can understand the best. I can actually feel the emotions of the winemaker while he made the wine. Most people will just think I’m lying, they have never felt emotions from a wine. And yet, wines that are influenced by the wine maker’s personality are the best wine in the world. This only happens with small productions vineyard that are trying to recreate a local authentic taste. They will give their wine character, and that character will enhance you tasting experience. This is an earthy wine, with red fruits, impeccable balance, a pleasant finish, complex and robust, full of pain and happiness, just like life.

Retirement Investing Discussion

With the baby boomers approaching retirement age, there is a new wind coming across the investment firms, and this wind is bringing the sound of hours and hours of planning, and implementing a new strategies to get the baby boomer's money into their pockets once they retire, or even better, start thinking about retiring. In his book "The Number" Lee Eisenberg tell us how every major player in Wall Street has devided plans to allocate a huge influx of retirement money.
During a discussion through LinkedIn I was told by an Independent Financial Services Professional that I might want to take a look at MLPs, even thought they were targeted at older investors looking to provide income, the had one heck of a year. Of course I'm always wary of anything that would qualify as "hot", watching your net worth plummet into the darkness, lighting up the way by the glow of its own flames is never pleasant, and most painful when bought at the very top of an unbelievable run up. Plus I am not even familiar with the loads, expenses, fees, years of lock up...But with millions of baby boomers coming into retirement, it just makes you want to believe that there will be many more incredible years. Unfortunately, I do not have a private line with the CEO of Lehman(up 1.82% today), Goldman Sacks (up 3.51% today, 10% this week) or Bearn Stearns (up 2.01%), but I bet they know what they're doing.
So, once your money is invested, and you have reached your "number", which way is the road to Paradise going to take you?

Bearish News

Well, we thought it was going to be a tough week for the markets, and with the Alcatel-Lucent downbeat announcement it looks like it will be a really long week for tech. Even thought Mr. Cramer likes to say “there is always a bull market somewhere” even he was saying on his street.com TV show that the markets will be on a down trend until the middle of the year, hopefully, by then the fed will ease, and markets should pick up and finish the year with the Dow at 15000. By the way, last year he was 7 points off his prediction for the Dow.

So, what will we do until then you ask? Personally I will hold on to my holdings, hope that GLD will be a good hedge and counter balance my losses. I was planning on buying some ETFs for my IRA, and I will probably limit myself to a Bond Market ETF, and maybe an REIT EFT, but for this one I will wait for some better market valuation, there hasn’t been any meaningful correction in a while.

I do think that the defensive stocks will make a stand, you can bet Kellogg’s and Procter & Gamble will not be shaken. I also expect any company with a large winter sports apparel portfolio to do well, as snow fell generously on the Rockies, I bet skiers come out strong to enjoy the powder.

Sunday News

Sundays are always tough for me: stock market closed, most of the business world is resting, football is on, the only people making money are the bookies and the few winners of gambling. Not exactly my cup of tea. That's why I opened a bottle of Rasteau last night. And for the unlucky few who do not know the Rhone Valley, Rasteau is a small village located between Chateauneuf-Du-Pape and Orange, slightly to the east, by Sablet and Cairanne, two other great Southern Rohne wines. This bottle is by Perrin also the owner of Beaucastel, probably the best Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine house. Mr. Perrin, who I had the pleasure to meet during one of his tastings at Bleu Provence in Naples, FL, is an extremely smart and nice man, who makes a variety of Rhone wines under the label "Perrin & Fils" including this Rasteau. This was a 2001, "L'Andeol" vineyard, 80% Grenache, 20% Syrah, with 10% aged in French oak, 13.5% alc./vol. I picked it up at our local Central Market for about $18.
This wine was barely showing age, the outer ring was starting to turn purple, but only by getting very close could you notice and the red was vivid. The concentration was perfect for me, which made the wine full bodied but without showing any alcoholic taste and a perfect balance. A long lasting finish, and full of lovely perfumes, such as black olives, thyme, and berries. You should know that I tend to detect the subtle tastes and miss the obvious ones. But the soul of the wine made me think of a warm and dry afternoon by an old olive tree in the Provencial grarigue. Then again my judgment might be swayed by the fact that I spent most of my childhood there.

Ritz-Carlton Naples, FL

Tech Vs...Energy?

While we all watched the horrible earning report from Intel send the Tech world into a wild downward trends and the likes of Google stock goog (I do own) , Apple (do not own), and RIMM (Do not own) lost about 5%. But if we avoid the obvious names and look at other companies on the hardware side like NT, ALU, or JDSU you will notice that the stock prices have done nothing since 2005. Yesterday JDSU announced better than expected results and saw share rise above 9%. Could this be an insight into the rest of the semis quarterly results? Will we see CNXT or SANM make a come back awaited since late 2004? No one can be sure but risk/rewards ratio are sure looking good. I mean how much lower can these stock prices go, and how far up could they rise?
Meanwhile energy stock have rebounded, some natural gas companies as much as 6.8% (KWK) after crude hit $50 a barrel and finally bounced back to $52.04, and now that the cold weather has landed in the east, should stay above these levels and probably higher. Yet I have not heard much positive long term commentary about oil and gas stocks, but it all sounds so last year to the media community. I will hold on to my oil sock (COP), if it's good enough for Mr. Warren Buffet it is good enough for me.

The Wedding Party

Open

I would like to talk about two things today: Oregon wines and financials.
First you should know that Domaine Serene from Oregon will be putting out the best pinot noirs in this century and probably millennia. Ken Evenstad, after making it in the pharmaceutical industry, is coming up with his greatest creation yet, and it's called "Monogram". You won't find it at your typical wine store, and you shouldn't drink it for another 15 to 20 anyway. But if you ever get your hands on one of those bottles thy shall treasure it like it is your own child. If you don't believe me, pick up a bottle the "Grace", lovingly named after Ken's wife. You will find yourself drinking one of the most complex, feminine, balanced pinot on this side of the Atlantic and the Monogram is suppose to be the king of the portfolio of already magnificent wines. Oregon with it's longer than California day time in the summer and clement temperatures is the perfect place to grow such delicate grape as pinot.
Next I would like to turn your attention to financials. After consulting Jim Cramer's chart of the GPD cycle it looks like we are approaching the bottom. Soon enough, the Fed should ease and the financial sector should be one of the beneficiary. But I am not a financial analyst and before taking my advice consult your own financial adviser.