VS

There seems to be a battle brewing online this week for the most talked about wine(s) in the blogosphere. A few weeks back, it was all about the Rockaway (just Google that, we’re too lazy to find the myriad links). Now, it’s all about two unlikely competitors: Loire Valley/Beaujolais bargains from France vs. Twisted Oak’s new River of Skulls Mourvédre, the first “mailing list” allocated wine for the much blogger-celebrated winery.

It’s not quite a West Coast vs. East Coast match-up of bloggers, but the Loire Lovers do seem to reside on the Eastern seaboard. The River-dancers are more scattered about, geographically speaking!

Go here, here and here for more on the Loire wines…and here, here and here for just a few of the many River of Skulls reviews. Click here if you want to sign up for the mailing list.

Now, we realize that Twisted Oak sent samples out to bloggers…but we know of no such effort on the part of French Gamay producers (or Louis/Dressner who imports many of the wines). We do wonder, though, if Asimov, Brooklynguy and Dr. Vino might have dined together recently!

FYI, we’ve yet to try the River of Skulls but look forward to doing so. We had a chance just yesterday to taste the ‘06 Spaniard, and it was delish. So elegant and balanced, without going overboard with oak in a Jorge Ordonez kind of way. This leaves us very excited to try the Skulls. Also, check back soon, as we’re going to be stocking up on some of the Chermette Beaujolais which we agree, for the money ($16), is pretty much an unbeatable bargain.