TANSTAAFL

A great post at Reign of Terroir alerted me today to the need to disclose to my loyal fanbase what I recieve by way of compensation for writing Slaked! As I have said before, that number would zero. Nothing. Zilch. I pay for all the wine I review on Slaked! and my total advertising earnings (for those little links to the right) equal $2.23.

Of course, that's not the point. Slaked! is "pure editorial" (in the immortal words of UrbanDaddy) and is solely here to help the lonely consumer find good wines in a wine world gone mad. That may mean spending $10 on something quite nice, or at least not spending $200 on something that's shit.

To that end, I'd like to take this chance to once again hype the new wines coming out of Tablas Creek. I received my fall shipment this week and immediately opened a bottle of the 2007 Esprit de Beaucastel. As I have previously written, the 2007 wines from the west side of Highway 101 in Paso Robles are un-freaking-believable, and Tablas Creek has a line-up of great wines at very reasonable prices considering the quality.

The 2007 Esprit de Beaucastel **** is composed of mourvedre, grenache, syrah, and counoise. It is a nearly brooding purple in the glass and shows notes of crushed berries, very mellow oak and an almost sweet tang at the top of the mouth on the finish. This is gentle on the palate now with sweet tannin and a closed nose, but it turned teeth puckering and showed red berry notes with evolved perfumes over two hours. Like most of Tablas Creek's wines, this is easy drinking. VINsider price $40, list price $50. Robert Parker score 95-97. Slaked! **** In other words, this is a no-brainer.