I'd like to join a wine of the month club, mainly focusing on French wines, any advice?
good question. I fully agree that tons of great wines come from other places, but because those other places are usually in english, it's way easier for me to sort out. french wine is harder for me and therefore I could use a little help. plus, it tastes good.
Noel, you're renting a $20,000/month house in Malibu. All those like micro-kini wearing cuties only drink apple-tinis so forget the frog wine, man.
K&L doesn't have a French club (they do have an Italian club), but they will taylor a program to your preferences. I've done business with them for 23 years. http://www.klwines.com/wineofthemonth.asp I would expect that you could find a local shop like Hart, Davis, Hart that could help you. A very cool upcoming charity Bordeaux tasting dinner at TRU: http://www.hdhwine.com/content.cfm/content.cfm?Contentalias=hdl09&ioa=1
Instead, find a club/somelier/collector who you can get some tips from. French is only words, spelled funny. Once you learn what's what, you'll be able to find your own. Ask around at work--a lot of traders are big into collecting. Also, go talk to Howard at Howard's wine shop on Belmont when you're back (between Racine and Southport). He's been in the business a long time and is a car nut to boot (particularly McLaren).
There are numerous sites that offer on-line sales of wine. Among the best are winesbywives.com, it offer wines at considerably less than your local store or have hard to find rarities.
I just took class #1 of two on French wines, specifically the Burgundy region. Other than tasting about 10 good wines, I'm not sure I know much more now than when I started!! The instructor is very knowledgeable on French wines but it can be soooooo complicated. Ok, I understand a bit more I guess but I don't hold out hope that many French wines will make it into my rotation. I do hope to find one or two producers I really like and stick with them. Which, in the end, really isn't that different than I do with other wines now I guess. I'd be interested to hear if you ever find a great solution to this.
