I have plantings of all of the Bordeaux grapes except for petit Verdot because its such a late ripening grape that where I live we start getting frosts and lots of rain towards the end of the year and im not confident that it would reach full ripeness. I don't like cabernet sauvignon and view it as the ugly useless stepchild of the Bordeaux family. Such a overrated grape. You get a much better experience with its parent Cabernet Franc. I also have plantings of Italian varietals such as Nebbiolo and Barbera which has been a pain to get to grow the barbera is really suffering because it can get hot enough that it damages barbera which seems to be prone to heat damage. ive got some plantings about 20 vines of Alphonse Lavallee which is a french grape created in the late 1800's about 1870. That came from plantings that were planted by my great great great grandfather who somehow got them within 6 months of the grape being created.

Thank you! Glad to be back. Cheers!

Thank you for the kind thought. Good luck on the Certified. I'm glad that anything I do provides even a small bit of help to you and others working on certifications or just wanting to increase their mastery of wine. Cheers!

Thanks! Looking forward to doing more. Cheers!

Thanks on both counts! It's much appreciated. Yeah, now that people have discovered PV as a single variety, it seems that the next step is to play around with it as a major partner in blends. The first four that you mentioned make a lot of sense, the first two because of the long history it has with those varieties and the latter two because they're also big and gnarly and would likely give the PV something to push up against. I'm intrigued to hear about pairing it with grapes like Sangio and Tempranillo, not so much because they aren't French but instead because they're relatively light -- my first impulse is to think that they'd get lost in anything other than a splash of PV, so I'm curious to try a blend like that. If you know of anything that I might find in my neck of the woods, please let me know. Cheers and thanks for letting me geek out!

Im personally into classic blends, and i feel that i do them better than most. Bordeaux wines are pretty much my favorite. This is the only grape that i didnt plant from bordeaux.

Thanks! I'm glad I'm back, too. Cheers!

Great recommendation. Thanks and cheers!

You may be right about that. The best PV I've had has been from warm climate areas. That said, most varietal PV is grown in warm climates (with the rare Bordeaux chateaux that make majority PV bottlings being the exception), so hard to know how big a factor climate is without some sort of control. But, then again, anything that gets PV to ripen properly can't be bad for it. Cheers!

My pleasure. Cheers!

Thank you! Glad to be back. Cheers!