“Now this is really interesting,” my beloved said upon seeing my colleague Rick Nelson’s roundup of dishes that he actually paid for in 2008. “Why don’t you do that with wine?” As ever, her wish is my command. Here’s a look at bottles I purchased last year:

Mailing Lists
Carlisle makes my favorite moderately priced ($30-$42) single-vineyard zins and syrahs from California, plus one petite sirah, an astounding and enigmatic field blend called Two Acres and some less expensive ($15-$20) Sonoma County-designated zin and syrah. I buy every bottle I can get my grubby little paws on.

I also buy my full allotments (often with friends) from Saxum and Sine Qua Non (no website), plus all the zin proffered by A. Rafanelli. These wineries’ mailing lists — or waiting lists to get on the mailing list — are highly recommended.

More stuff I buy from wineries that don’t, alas, distribute here: Aubert chardonnay; Williams Selyem pinots, chards, and zins; Kosta Browne pinots; Quilceda Creek cabs; Stony Hill chards and riesling; and “club” offerings from Hartford Court and Meeker. Based on friends’ recommendations, I took my first foray into the syrahs of Sean Thackrey and Lagier Meredith, and bought some Pax, which will be distributed here soon.

Retail
I can’t afford a lot of other high-end wines, but last year I shelled out semi-big bucks for several Spanish reds (Alvaro Palacios’ Finca Dofi, Flor de Pingus and Numanthia Toro) and one each from italy (Colle del Venti Tufo Blu Barolo), France (Nicolas Potel “Les Teurons” Beaune) and Oregon (Le Cadeau pinot noir).

Locally, I sought out merchants whose judgment I trust and let them steer me to new and interesting stuff. Among them:

In Minnetonka, Rodney Brown at the Wine Shop and Lonny Isenberg at Haskell’s; in St. Paul, Chuck Kanski and  Mike Dombrow at Solo Vino, Nick Nadeau at 1st Grand and Mike Thomas at Thomas Liquors; in Minneapolis, Darrin Minehan at Sorella and Mitch Zavada at South Lyndale; in Long Lake, Mike Yungner at the Liquor Barn and Pat Keeler at Lakeside; in Woodbury, Bill Abrahamson at Top Ten and Ray Zemke at the Cellars; plus Kristen Kowalski at the Wine Market in Mendota Heights, Greg Varner at Excelsior Vintage and Corey Burstad at Tournament Liquors in Blaine.

All of these folks — and several others whose shops I wasn’t able to visit in ‘08 — are worth seeking out.

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