Around the holiday's I like to splurge a little on wine, getting away from my traditional affordability theme. That being said, what's affordable to one person is not affordable to the other, so these wines might be right up your alley!
I was unfortunately reminded again that price and rating do not necessarily dictate how good the wine is. Take the two bottles below, both retail for around $40, I got them on sale for $30. Any time I splurge on wine there's definitely a palatable excitement as I open the bottle, something akin to the salivating Pavlovian dog. I was very excited with The Prisoner a 2007 Wine Spectator top 100, rated 93 and Quinta Do Craston Old Vines 2005, a Wine Spectator rated 95.
The first bottle I opened was the Old Vines Quinta Do Crasto, which I learned later was from Portugal. I've had some excellent Madeira from Portugal, but in my mind Portugal doesn't have the wine making prowess of it's neighbor Spain. Unfortunately that played itself out in the wine.
A little closed at first the wine did open up with time and was enjoyable to drink, no more so than some of the $10 bottles I've reviewed though. I was a little perplexed by Wine Spectator's take on this one, “Deeply colored, with intense yet refined aromas and flavors of kirsch, boysenberry, dark cherry and spice. The fruit is supported by focused notes of mineral and graphite, and the finish is loaded with dark chocolate and medium tannins. Drink now through 2015.” My dollars would have been better spent on the next wine:
Do you have or ever had a friend that smoked cigarettes? Not being a smoker myself, out of curiosity I took my friends pack of cigarettes and whiffed an open pack. The first recognizable smell was raisins! Sounds a little strange? Check it out for yourself. It was only after I started drinking wine and doing reviews did I put two and two together when adjectives like "fresh tobacco" were used. Fresh Tobacco smells of Raisins, Raisins are dried grapes, wine is made from ripe grapes...
Orin Swift The Prisoner, 2005, was an absolute joy to drink. I drank it alone so I was able to stretch the enjoyment over three days. It was so dense and rich it was like drinking out of a jelly jar! If you're looking to splurge a little this holiday season, you won't go wrong with this beauty. WS: "A Delicious Wine that offers the best of both worlds:zesty wild berry,spice and fresh tobacco,with focused,well-structured blackberry flavors, plush, rich and concentrated, with a wonderful focus on the core fruit flavours."
Cheers!
There are four main flavor centers on the human tongue, salt, sweet, sour and bitter. There's a mysterious fifth called umami, but I won't address that today. In my experience there are certain cravings, sweet or salty. You'll gravitate towards one or another when the snack bug calls... but what if you had both, let's say a buttery toffee popcorn, imparting both the sweet and salt? You've something special, a snack you can't put down until the bag is empty! The following wine was just that for me, very hard to put down. 
