Which is better: the $90 Scotch or the $690 Scotch?

Glenmorangie is one of my favorite Scotch producers because I like their main bottling, the 10-year, which is great value at about $40.

But Scotch producers don't rest anymore on their flagships. Instead, they release an ever-expanding group of special bottlings, many of which are aged for less time but cost more money than the main releases.

It's hard to keep up with all the bottles now in duty free, but I was excited to try two Glenmorangie special releases: Spios, which is aged in rye casks from Kentucky, and Grand Vintage 1989, for which some of the spirit was aged in used Côte-Rôtie barrels (the rest was aged in ex-Oloroso Sherry casks and, like many Scotches, ex-Bourbon casks.)

It will be obvious to readers which one costs more: Grand Vintage 1989, because it's 29 years old, whereas Spios has no age statement. The question is, does Grand Vintage taste $600 better? I like it when the cheaper spirit tastes better. I poured some of both into white wine glasses and had a taste off.

Thoughts on deleting my Twitter archive

Last week I had about 9000 tweets. Right now, that number is 8.

I'm not a TV star or Hollywood director. I'm not an obvious target for the trolls on either side of our political divide. Nonetheless, the idea that something I might have tweeted in 2009, when I started on Twitter, would lead to punishment in 2018 bothered me, enough that I decided to erase everything.

I'm not the only one doing this; just the least famous. Before I give my own overlong explanation, I'd like to quote a writer I don't know named Cheryl Lynn Eaton, who said everything I actually need to say in a couple of tweets:

None of us owe Twitter anything. Every one of us who has tweeted has provided Twitter with a service. Our content and our eyeballs to trade for advertising dollars. And all some of us asked is that Twitter jettison the Nazis and the abusers. And we got "No" in return.

— Cheryl Lynn Eaton (@cheryllynneaton) July 26, 2018

And that means we have to take on the business of protecting ourselves with locked accounts and block bots and even removing our content if we deem it necessary.

— Cheryl Lynn Eaton (@cheryllynneaton) July 26, 2018

Nothing is ever really gone, of course. I'm sure my tweets still exist somewhere and if I was important somebody could find and read them. Because I had to manually delete the first 2500 tweets I ever wrote, I have a good idea of what you're going to see.

W. Blake Gray shortlisted for another Roederer Award!

Celebrating the shortlisting with Roederer Anderson Valley NV Brut

One of my proudest achievements in wine writing is winning the Roederer Award in 2013 for Best Blogger/Online Wine Writer. It's still right there in my blog's masthead.

The night I won, while my wife and I were deeply into a bottle of sparkling wine, she suggested that I put the award on my business cards. That sounded like a fine idea.

I went right to a design-your-own site, downloaded a generic photo of wine grapes as art, and ordered a batch. I thought the minimum order was excessive: 1000 cards, for a business card I could only use for a year until somebody else won the award. But what the hell, I figured: the night before the next person won, I could just stand in the street and hand them out.

However, I got unbelievably lucky. They renamed the award! It's now called the Ramos Pinto Online Communicator Award.

This is not just a renaming: it's a new category, right? This is my logic as, five years later, I still use those drunkenly composed business cards.

I have been resting on my laurels, but this year, my editor at Wine-Searcher, Don Kavanagh, urged me to apply for Best Online Communicator. He has to read all my stories for that site and he thought I had a good year.

Last week I learned I made the shortlist! It's an extremely intimidating group, and I'm glad that, as my friend Alder Yarrow pointed out, it's not the Roederer Award for Wine Knowledge.

The short list:
Sarah Abbott MW
Tim Atkin MW
Andrea Frost
Jamie Goode
W. Blake Gray
Kelli White

That is some serious company. I'm delighted, honored and humbled to be included.

Here are the articles I submitted:

Sex, Love and the $1000 Breakfast Wine

Please Do Not Buy These Wines

Napa Vineyard Sale's Knock-On Price Effect

I don't know if I'm going to win, but I'm proud of that work.

I hope you'll excuse the lack of humility in this post. I'm just so pleased to have a shot at this award -- even though it would probably mean I would have to order new business cards.

Follow me on Twitter: @wblakegray and Instagram @wblakegray and like The Gray Report on Facebook.

The Master Sommelier-run winery that stays under the radar

In the slow summer months before harvest, Greg Harrington's to-do list is short

Why isn't Gramercy Cellars more famous? I can't understand it. Look at all the boxes it checks:

🍷 Founded by a Master Sommelier, Greg Harrington, who ran wine programs in famous restaurants for Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck

🍷 Well-reviewed, food-friendly wines that usually make "state's best" lists

🍷 Almost no new oak, so the fruit shines, and not too high in alcohol

🍷 8000 cases a year, so the wines are widely available

🍷 Only two wines are over $60

When I visited Walla Walla, Washington in June I didn't think there was much need for a Gramercy Cellars story. I figured everyone knew already: Some of the most sommelier-friendly Rhone-style wines made in the U.S.

Then I started poking around the Internet and discovered that, while the wines keep getting favorable reviews, little else has been written about the winery since just after it opened. This story has been hiding in plain sight.

In 1996, Harrington became the youngest American to pass the Master Sommelier exam, at the age of 26. He founded Gramercy Cellars in 2005. He says that four years ago, tasting his older vintages encouraged him to change some of his winemaking techniques.

Unique wine made from grapes growing wild in a riverbed

Winemaker Christian Sepulveda checks out the nearly ripe wild grapes he'll use for País Salvaje

One of the most interesting wines I've had this year comes from wild grapevines climbing up tree trunks over a river. And that's just part of its appeal.

The wine is Bouchon País Salvaje 2017 from Maule Valley in Chile. It's available in the U.S. for under $25, and I guarantee you will find no wine in this price range with a more compelling history. Plus it's complex and delicious.

The winery owner is progressive-thinking, and hired one of the best young winemakers in Chile. Many of Bouchon's wines are worth checking out, especially their series of "Granito" wines designed to highlight the effect of granite soils.

But the País Salvaje is unique in the world: a commercial wine (albeit only 5000 bottles per year) from wild grapes. Probably the wine shouldn't exist, because the grapevines shouldn't exist.

"We had this patrimonial variety there for many years," says Julio Bouchon. "We didn't give it the attention it deserves."

Nobody did.