I was enjoying a recent-release wine (2017 vintage) from a California producer, and wanted more information on the wine, as the label didn’t say much. To my surprise, the wine wasn’t even listed on their site, though many others were listed. I’ve encountered this before, and it’s made me think about why this might be. A few possibilities come to mind:
The winery is lousy at maintaining their web site.
The wine was produced in quantities too small to offer it on their site.
The wine was produced for direct retail distribution, so isn’t offered or mentioned on their site.
The wine didn’t turn out so good, and the winery doesn’t want to “advertise” it. (This happens more often than I’d have expected. I encounter it with some frequency searching “flash site” wines, such as Last Bottle. The winery will list recent vintages of the wine, but the one offered on the flash site doesn’t show up!)
Nate, I see this happen when tasting the new release samples from a winery. Usually all of the tech sheets come with the wines but if they don’t I do need to consult the website. It isn’t unusual the newest releases are not offered yet. Pure economics drive this - a winery won’t begin offering their 2016 when they still have 2015, for example.
For me, I often pour wines at tastings that are not currently ‘released’ or available on the website. I try to simplify things on my site and not make it too crowded . . . but I can certainly do better.
If you had purchased this in a restaurant (which you did not), I would say that the winery sold this wine exclusively to restaurants so that the diners could not compare prices. Such wines usually lack a bar code.
Phil Jones
