They make good stuff. Some wineries extended their deals. Depending on you budget look into Scherrer. Dude makes fantastic stuff.
He started with Zins and they are great. His Chards are great as well but they are sold out of the deals. Here are the deals left. I have heard good thing about his Pinots but have not tried yet. https://scherrerwinery.com/special-offers/ Edit: you have to create an account to view the deals. I will screenshot them.
Just ordered the Zin mini vertical. I have very limited storage space so I think we will be done. Thanks for the recommendation.
How long have you been on their list and what year was your first to be offered? Read that they were on about a 7 year wait.
Last fall was my first allocation. I probably joined the wait list in 2012. I had been getting in to wine for a couple years and it was about that time I started putting my name on lists with a wait like Bryant Family, Colgin, Schrader, Cayuse, No Girls, Quilceda Creek, SQN and Saxum. I still haven't cracked Cayuse, SQN and Schrader and I passed on Colgin when they had a 3-pack minimum at $400 per bottle. I have yet to open a bottle of Saxum from last fall but I did drink a glass pour at an event last year. Stylistically it is a much bigger wine than I typically prefer but it was good so I bought 6 bottles last fall (full allocation) and 6 today (full allocation was a mix of 12 bottles).
Just ordered a case of Rose damnit. At just over 1$0/bottle and great reviews on CT I felt I had to do it.
Kind of like Saxum, I signed up before ever trying one. I’ve had a couple now as well as Andremily which is from the former SQN winemaker. They’re well made wines but I wouldn’t call any right in my wheelhouse. I like having a few like that for certain occasions like a steakhouse with guys but I don’t necessarily want a huge supply of things my wife won’t drink. Maybe if the price point is right but I sense SQN is pretty high for that. Certainly reach out if you have them available, I’m just not sure—especially with some other things we have going on in our life.
How much is the SQN? Saxum runs either $100 or $150 and it seems to depend if it gets a normal or late release (extra barrel age).
That is about where Bryant was when I got on the list in about 2013 or so. I bought 2 bottles of 2009 vintage to try but I still haven’t opened one. They are on their 4th winemaker since that vintage and the price is $550 which just seems insane.
I think the pricing is to prove something but I haven’t been buying and they keep me on the list which implies it isn’t selling. They have a 2nd wine for about $100 that is really good and I’ve bought that every other year or so but I even stopped that with the 2014 vintage because they were difficult to deal with when I had a corked bottle.
Love me some Bob Foley. Wife and I had a couple of bottles of the ‘12 Kelly’s Cuvée. Great stuff. Good night.
How was the 16? My 14's have quite a bit of legs left but 15 was hotter so been prioritizing them since they're closer to peak. Haven't had a 16 since they released.
Having all the wine I ordered delivered to my dad's office is turning out t ok be a bad idea haha. 10 seperate orders in a 2 week period is raising suspicion. Does a yone use fedex/ups drop locations? Any negatives?
I needed to plan ahead for spring deliveries so I pulled my first 16. It was good. Fruit forward as you expect from a young wine. Good acid levels.
2018 Fleuries are bomb Opened a Famille Dutraive Fleuire La Madone last night and it is out of this world. Crunchy bright fruit, white pepper and licorice, amazingly long finish. I bought 4 other bottles of Dutraive 2018s. Highly recommended.
All scheduled for this years return to Napa in April...wineries booked: Massican - this will actually be a tasting at 750 Wine in St Helena sine they don’t have a tasting room Larkmead Reverie II Wheeler Farms (repeat for us, we went last year, highly recommend) Kapcsandy Promise We might head up to Pride again if we get some time since they’re always open and they have such a cool property
Reverie is awesome. Really good wines and very comfortable, low key atmosphere. They’ll let you bring a lunch, which is also cool.
Planning my Napa trip out now. Whats the best mode of transit to get from winery to winery. With a group of 6, assume hiring a driver is way to go?
Yes, there are a bunch of “tour” companies that can either do a guided tour or just provide transport. Been drinking through a bunch of Hartford Court pinots lately. Everything from base Russian River to Lands Edge, Seascape, and even their Oregon Warrior Princess Block. Given availability, price point and consistent quality, I am a huge fan. Chardonnays have been really nice as well.
We just ubered everywhere with our group of 4. There was never a problem grabbing rides. It may be worth it to hire a driver with six people.
We use Perata for one day - Nick has been a very good guy to set up visits. You can have a conversation with him about what you're looking for and he can set up visits that will be best suited for you. The other days we have just one set up in the morning where we read about or got referred to... and we'll leave the afternoon open and see what happens. We always try to leave a couple afternoons open when we hear about something cool from a somm or someone we meet. I'm sure if you set up your own visits you can just hire a car for the day if you want to hit multiple stops. I also have to recommend 750 Wines in St Helena - they handle a bunch of smaller wineries (and some larger ones) and are technically a retail operation but what the do really well is focus tastings based on your preferences - she'll send out a questionnaire for you to fill out and when you show up she'll have pulled wines for you based on your answers... it's a cool deal. She and Nick worked together to get Massican to do a tasting for us because he has no tasting room so he doesn't really do tastings at all - but he knows we've been buying and raving about his wines so Nick and the lady from 750 asked him to do a personal tasting and he's gonna do that for us...
If anyone is interested WB is doing a forum for wineries/businesses to post deals. Only a few posted now but more to come. https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=85
My wine club ships 12 bottles quarterly, but just informed me that the spring shipment will be delayed indefinitely. Anyone have a recommendation on others who are still shipping during the lockdown?