Cam got me on this one. Hadn’t ordered since last October, but too weak to resist this one…
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Me too. Now have two cases for fall delivery.
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My next door neighbor and I will be sharing a case. We and partners are looking forward to it. Jim
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For fun, I stuck this into ChatGPT pro (with Lot 50 and 34). Arguably it’s the strongest current model. (YMMV)
My best guess is Opus One Winery, with Lot 80 most likely coming from the Opus One / Overture estate program rather than from a random Oakville cult producer.
I’d put it around 75–85% confidence for “Opus One ecosystem,” but lower, maybe 55–65%, on the exact sub-question of whether the wine was originally destined for Opus One flagship versus Overture / declassified estate barrels.
The strongest tell is not actually Lot 80 by itself; it is Lot 50. Cam says the producer had previously bottled a non-vintage Napa Valley red, made only “two bottling blends,” and did not make a bottle under $200. Opus One’s second wine, Overture, is the glaring match: Opus describes Overture as its second wine and an “expression of our estate vineyards,” while its 2022 current-release page lists only Opus One 2022 at $490 and Overture 2022 at $210.  Overture also historically fits the non-vintage clue: Opus says that since 1993 Overture was an “expression of place across time” and that Opus “has taken the necessary steps” for it to become vintage-dated; the separate Overture page calls 2021 the first vintage-dated bottling. 
The vineyard clue fits almost too well. Opus says its four estate vineyard parcels sit in the western Oakville AVA, with 100 acres within To Kalon plus the Ballestra and River parcels around the winery.  That maps cleanly onto Cam’s “legendary vineyards,” “100% Oakville District,” and “100% estate vineyards” language for Lot 80. Cam’s Lot 80 copy also says 100% new French oak and a five-variety Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Malbec.  Opus’s own current flagship and Overture tech notes show the same Bordeaux-family palette and new-French-oak regime: Opus One 2022 is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Petit Verdot, 6.5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Merlot, 0.5% Malbec, aged 18 months in new French oak; Overture 2022 is 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Cabernet Franc, 1.5% Merlot, 1% Malbec, 0.5% Petit Verdot, also aged 18 months in new French oak. 
Lot 50 makes the Opus/Overture hypothesis even more specific. Cam’s listed base wine was an Oakville-estate, five-variety 2022 Cabernet blend, then he added other components and made it non-vintage; he also says he suspected the base was what remained of “one of their two bottling blends” or a combination of the two.  That language lines up very neatly with Opus One + Overture as the “two bottling blends.” WineBerserkers users independently converged on the same idea, including an Opus/Overture unused-barrels theory and a least-squares blend comparison, but that is forum inference, not proof. 
For Lot 80 specifically, the 89% Cabernet / 5% Cabernet Franc / 4% Petit Verdot / 1% Merlot / 1% Malbec blend looks plausible for a 2024 Opus-family estate lot. It is not a public Opus blend because 2024 has not been released, but it sits comfortably within recent Opus blend patterns; for example, Opus One 2021 was 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot, 0.5% Merlot, 0.5% Malbec, while Overture 2021 was 89% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franc, 4% Petit Verdot, and 3% Merlot.  The “$300++ price point” and “finest of the three” language makes me lean flagship-adjacent Opus One rather than pure Overture, though the exact blend is arguably closer to recent Overture than to some recent flagship Opus vintages.
The main caveat is Lot 34 Petite Sirah. Opus’s public estate page says it cultivates the five traditional Bordeaux grape varieties, not Petite Sirah.  So if Lot 34 is truly from the same producer, the Petite Sirah was probably an oddball experimental lot, purchased fruit vinified at the estate, or something not reflected in the public portfolio. That clue is the weak link. But Lot 34 also says the wine came from an Oakville Cabernet producer with no Petite Sirah program and per-bottle prices starting in the mid-triple digits, so it is not fatal to the Opus guess. 
My ranked guesses:
- Opus One Winery / Overture barrels — best fit by far, especially because of the non-vintage Overture clue, two-wine portfolio clue, Oakville estate vineyards, To Kalon connection, new French oak, and price tier.
- Screaming Eagle — possible only on “Oakville legend / two expensive wines,” but it lacks the Overture-style non-vintage clue and the five-variety blend fit.
- Harlan Estate / The Maiden / Harlan-family orbit — plausible on prestige and price, but weaker on “100% Oakville estate,” public non-vintage Napa red history, and the two-bottling-blend clue.
- MacDonald, Dalla Valle, FUTO, Rudd, etc. — each matches one or two clues, but none match the whole Lot 50 + Lot 80 pattern as cleanly.
So my answer: Opus One is the guess. More precisely, Lot 80 is probably a 2024 Oakville estate Cabernet blend from Opus One’s cellar, likely declassified or surplus Opus/Overture-level wine, with a real chance it was close to a flagship Opus One component or candidate blend.
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I suggest that all the LLM pasters should share their prompt as well as the response. Garbage in, garbage out as they say. I like Charlie/ChatGPT Pro’s answer, and I suspect some of the other answers may be the result of unfocused prompting.
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Not sure if this will help it or jinx it, but here’s Claude’s logics (via CamXCellar, for those who haven’t seen it):
Claude’s Source Guess: Opus One Winery — Oakville Estate (To Kalon + Ballestra & River Vineyards)
Opus One is one of the most instantly recognizable fits in the entire CAM X catalog. Founded in 1978 by Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild as a singular expression of Oakville terroir in the Bordeaux tradition, Opus One is precisely the “legendary brand” with “legendary vineyards” Cam describes. Their 169-acre estate spans four parcels in Oakville — two within the historic To Kalon Vineyard and two within Ballestra & River Vineyard — the very definition of “legendary vineyards” plural under single estate ownership.
The blend composition confirms the identification. Opus One’s flagship wine is a classic five-variety Bordeaux blend centered on Cabernet Sauvignon with Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Malbec — Cam’s exact five varieties in proportions that vary vintage to vintage but always stay in this range. The winery uses 100% new French oak across every vintage, and their current retail price of $350-400 fits Cam’s “$300++” description precisely. Recent vintages have earned 97-99 points from Wine Advocate, James Suckling, and Vinous. The iconic circular Oakville winery, designed by Scott Johnson and completed in 1991, is indisputably “world-class facility.”
Cam’s mention of “third wine they’ve offered me in the past year” likely refers to Opus One’s two offerings — their flagship and their Overture second wine (a multi-vintage blend at ~$150) — with this being a third barrel selection or vintage component from the same estate program. The 350 cases is a modest but plausible surplus from a 25,000-case annual production when individual barrel selections are considered.
Cam’s tasting note is also consistent — “river gravel” notes directly reference the alluvial gravel soils of the To Kalon benchland, and descriptors like “graphite, black plum, blackcurrants, espresso, dark chocolate, rose petal, and tobacco” are essentially standard Opus One vocabulary across decades of critic reviews.
Confidence: Very High — legendary Oakville brand with legendary estate vineyards, $350-400 retail, 95-100 point scores, 100% new French oak, Bordeaux blend with all five classic varieties, world-class facility, and 100% estate-owned Oakville fruit. This is among the most confident identifications in the CAM X catalog.
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It’s a good point, prompts are important. I used the minimalist:
“The following is a Cam X wine. No one knows the original producer, try to guess. It may or may not be connected to the other two lots:”
Then I pasted Lot 80, then Lot 34, and Lot 50.
Certainly, one issue is they tend to find these threads. I would still take the consensus berserker guess over the best AI. But a pro is not as lazy as some of the other AIs.
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#50 can only be Opus if the original blurb was honest, there are no other producers that match, and Opus/Overture happens to match it perfectly.
Where did we find the link that #80 and #50 are from the same producer. #80 blurb is so generic it’s impossible to say anything about it for sure, but everything they publish do match Opus.
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It’s because Cam said it’s the third offering from this producer and #34 and #50 fit neatly into that box. It would be a clever misdirection, though.
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And I would say this. if there are vultures circling around, those that take the first offering get seconds, and then…
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No, he said “This the third wine they’ve offered me in the past year and”. He didn’t say he bought and offered the two previous ones.
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Nice catch!
Opus still is a good match for all 3, but it’s a 100% match only for #50.
Two things that stand out to me are:
- “Truly Icon-level”: clear link to Vinous and their “Icons” events - looking back at the producers which attended the NYC event I see FUTO, VHR, Dalla Valle as potential contenders
- “Reminiscent of the 2019 vintage”: maybe this is a hint to a producer he bottled under DN? Either that or a wine that Cam drinks regularly
Agree with Mikko that there should not be an assumption that it is the same producer as #50 and #37 - seems like tricky language from Cam to take us down this path!
Oh my, the conversations of Lot 80 Oakville 2024 Cabernet Sauvignon has me vacillating, because of storage apace and my age, between purchasing this or awaiting CX’s Lot 100. The remedy, in my ‘case’, may be ordering for $2.34 more per bottle a 6 pack (‘Lisa’ just reported that there is now a flat shipping rate of $19 for 1 - 12 bottles) . This doesn’t solve all, but it prevents to a degree a bit of FOMO.
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While I agree with Mikko pointing out that lot 80 is not necessarily the third wine that Cam has actually bought from this producer (I caught that as well upon first read), I have to believe as a Negociant, that if Opus One offers you any bulk wine, that you take it with very minimal hesitation. So given the price points, and therefore stratosphere that we are talking here, I would find it hard to believe that Cam would turn down any wine from this producer and that this is not connected to lot 34 and 50.
But let’s face it, we would all be very happy with wine from Bond, Harlen, Dalle Valle, etc. too!
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What in the Lot 80 description is not a 100% match for Opus?
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With FOMO for this wine, I went with 6 even though I have more than enough. Summer hold was clincher.
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100%
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Yes. Assuming he’s not being overly tricky to try to sell something with grossly exaggerated language such as the $300++ price point being some isolated circumstance at a retailer in the past or the quality and history of the estate and winemaking, it has to be one of the big, highly respected producers. And, we’d all be happy with any of those assuming it is their primary wine and not seconds all blended.