Hello, newbie here. Any thoughts on the 2018 Shafer Hillside select? Including tax and shipping, it will be $430 per bottle! It makes me wonder why do people even bother signing up for the winery allocations if one can buy them at a less expensive price through indepensdent wine stores, Costco, or even Total Wine? Thank you.
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Unless you have a special reason to buy winery direct, go buy at retail cheaper. I dropped the list after 2016. The wine can be found well below winery direct pricing.
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Shader recently sold (like most other Napa wineries) to a conglomerate. New owners, new rules, new prices…
Sad news for Shafer fans. The relentless was exceptional
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Shafer has done a terrible job with maintaining a market retail inline with their DTC pricing for a long time now.
What incentive do you have to buy Shafer HSS 2018 DTC at $430? Its not exclusivity as there are at least 57 retailers offering that same vintage for less. These retailers also include Wine.com , Total Wine , B-21 all which offer coupons or amex rebates periodically.
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All that plus the wine is simply not close to worth that much.
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But isn’t that the fun of wine - ‘worth’ is about as subjective as it gets, right? Who’s to say what one wine is ‘worth’ vs another? Why would someone pay $200 for a bottle when they can get as much ‘enjoyment’ out of a bottle half it’s price? Or in this case $430? Because THEY feel it is ‘worth that much’, even if you (or I) do not.
The wine business, just like so many other ‘subjective’ endeavors, is bonkers sometimes . . .
Cheers
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Some people spend that much in way lesser wines, such as Burgundy.
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I suppose individual taste factors in, but I was on the list from 2002-2007 and continue to be dramatically underwhelmed by the wines.
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First time getting an allocation as well. Surprised purchasing direct more expensive than I can purchase elsewhere as described above. Shame, will be passing…
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Drinking a 2018 tonight that I picked up on auction for 225 range. Actually bought some more on auction for about the same price. At this price, it is great!!! 430 - not so good…
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Someone served me a 2007 a few weeks ago. It showed very well, but I was surprised to see it was 15.5%, and I see that recent vintages have similar ABVs. That’s very high!
There was another thread where this was mentioned - are you sure the '07 was 15.5%? I thought they labeled it 14.9% until the 2010 when it went to 15.5%. Whatever, they are always on the big side - I was just surprised how elegant the "18 was tonight - a little heat on the finish but not awful by any means.
I’m a big Shafer Hillside Select fan. For my palate they start to come into their own at about 10 years of age and then really start shining past 15. We’ve had some great experiences over the last couple of yrs with bottles over 20yrs old!
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My positive experiences with Shafer Hillside Select have been at least 10 years old, preferably older. Of course you have to like a big style of cab.
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I finished off that bottle tonight. Really showing quite well for a relatively young wine. Sure, it will last a while (like 2 more decades!) but this really was quite elegant and really no sense of alcohol. Certainly not like an aged Bordeaux, but a rich finish that lingers and bright fruit that isn’t overwhelming.
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For anyone in Chicagoland, my local Binny’s(Geneva) had the 21 HSS on closeout pricing for $179.99. 1 left right now
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