In September of this year I was lucky enough to travel through Germany with legendary importer Rudi Wiest. I have long been a fan of the great wines of Germany but I have to say this trip was nothing short of a revelation. I had the opportunity not only to speak with the winemakers and walk their vineyards with them, I got to taste roughly 400 wines, most of them from the 2006 vintage. I'm happy to offer some of the highlights of this trip in the form of my "German Travelogues."

I had tried some Schloss Lieser wines before, but I was not expecting the perfection that I experienced. Let me not be shy here: I consider the collection amongst the absolute best I had while in Germany.

The slate walls of the estate, showing off the VDP plaque.

Choosing any one wine, out of a year's worth of incredible experiences, is a daunting task.

Though in a way, this year is a bit easier for me. I've been a passionate drinker/collector of Champagne since I first began my adventure into wine over 17 years ago. 2007 is unquestionably the year Champagne came of age, both at the retail level and at auction. Collector/investor interest in top cuvees is at an all time high - Champagne has now joined the ranks of Bordeaux and Burgundy as one of the most sought-after and collectible wines in the world, with Krug and Dom Perignon leading the way.

With this in mind, my wine of the year came into sight as the obvious victor. This is a wine that takes tremendous amounts of time, care, labor and materials to produce - yet year in and year out it is consistent and complex. The 2007 Krug Grande Cuvee is the Crush Wine of the Year!

So I have to begin this email with the embarrassing admission that I drank up most of the bottles we had in stock of my Wine of the Year - Nicolas Potel's delicious 2005 Cote de Nuits-Villages. (Sorry about that.)

As penance though, I'm happy to offer the final shipment, arriving in early 2008, at a special pre-arrival price that's discounted down to under $30. I've been on a 2005 Burgundy rampage for much of the year, going to just about every tasting I could find. At this price, Potel's Cote de Nuits is the most authentic and invigorating 2005 Burgundy I've experienced - an energetic and worthy mascot for this unbelievable vintage.

The methods I used to determine my "Wine of the Year" have nothing to do with point scores or detailed comparisons of the thousands of wines I have tasted over the last 12 months. My metrics are much more simple and visceral - last year Forte Canto swayed me with its "Gulp-ability Factor."

This year I declare Cazin's 2002 Cour-Cheverny "Cuvee Renaissance" my Wine of the Year, citing the"Lemonhead Effect!"

My choice for Wine of the Year is the 2000 Chateau de Fonbel.

The story here is simple: An innocent tasting where I was simply blind-sided by the wine's purity and elegance - aromatic with plentiful fruit wrapped in layers of great spice, minerality and florality. The mouthfeel is undeniably St-Emilion - luxurious and full, expansive and enveloping, yet with a seemingly nimble footprint.

At under $40, this is one of the best deals in Bordeaux I've come across all year.

When national publications name their "Wines of the Year," they are limited by many factors - the biggest of which is the wine's availability. It doesn't make sense for them to drive the public into a frenzy over a bottle of wine that is hardly available.

As a small independent retailer, we have more freedom!

Granted, we also use a different set of criteria. We want outrageous quality for the money, of course, but we also seek respectful winemaking, a wine that speaks of where it comes from and what we call the x-factor - that inexplicable, inexpressible, toe-curling sense of something extraordinary.

Stadlmann's 2006 Zierfandler Mandel-Hoh has all this and more - that's why it's my wine of the year!

No, you've probably never heard of Zierfandler. It's a largely unheard of grape that's basically only grown in Austria's tiny Thermenregion. The Mandel-Hoh vineyard is the world's top site for the grape - this wine should not to be confused with Stadlmann's regular Zierfandler bottling.

The continued low prices for Barolos from the estate of Giuseppe Mascarello are inexplicable, especially given the unquestionably elite status of the wines.

Because of one of the best deals we cut all year, we are thrilled to bring the prices of these wines even lower - up to 40% below fair market value! Importantly, at these prices almost any curious wine lover can try at least one bottle of this Piedmont Royal, before the numbers go up to where they should be.

This is also the year's last Italian offering, and such an honor couldn't be bestowed on a more worthy winemaker. Mascarello is one of my personal Piedmont favorites and these are two wines we've been saving for this final celebration: Mascarello's 2000 Monprivato and the inaugural 1993 Monprivato "Ca d'Morissio," both offered at the lowest prices in the nation.

The full-court press of the holidays is upon us! By the time the end of last week rolled around just about everybody needed a little pick-me-up. I was happy to celebrate our hard work an add a bit of excitement to our usual Friday staff tasting by popping the cork on some bubbles.

The unquestionable star of the night was Bollinger's 1999 Grande Annee. This is an amazing bottle of wine - the one that everyone was talking about Saturday morning. Rich and thunderous with a fantastic foundation of dark and sweet notes, baking spices, and the trademark "Bolli" cookie dough provide a solid core around which shavings of citrus added high notes and balancing accents. The concentration and length... nothing short of amazing.

For those of you who have never had vintage Bollinger, this is the perfect moment to indulge - with the party season beginning, I can't think of an under-$100 bottle of vintage Champagne that offers the finely detailed exuberance and pure hedonism of the Grande Annee.