I insist you open one of these with her right now! Enjoy it for all that it is giving today, not for what it may or may not someday become.
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I recall this being very good. Well balanced, good fruit, medium length flavors. Wine is still tight at this point and aging is going to help.
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Likely Wente Chardonnay.
Happy 4th of July all.
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Iāve prob drank through half my case of my 416. Itās nice and aromatic, enjoyable now. Downside is a bit high alcohol at 14.5% posted if I recall, and you cal feel that. Not sure it will improve a lot more TBH.
I second the previous poster. Enjoy as many bottles as you can with your Iāll recipient and live life.
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Cork confirms this as the source. Mine were all heat damaged so waiting to hear from dN before opening any. Decent deal, not a bargain.
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Whatās been your shipping experience been lately? I just had an āemergencyā white wine delivery as I was running low on daily drinkers for the wife. In in SE Florida and they used to ship temp controlled to Sarasota one evening and from there itād be at the UPS office next morning ready to pick up. Based on this I thought it ok to ship with the ice pack option. Now I see FL shipments go to Roswell, GA, and from there UPS through Jacksonville for a day and down to us. I guess the holiday on the 4th added a day, but it took four days now from the 2nd till it was ready for pickup on the 6th. It had the ice packs in it and it was at 80 degrees when I picked it up today as I was traveling yesterday, so I donāt really know how the temps really were. The styrofoam shippers help with insulation but itās like 90+ outdoors in the trucks and open air UPS facilities. No pushed corks, but Iām not doing it again.
BTW, I donāt love the new shorter agglomerated corks used on these 470s-480s Chards. Not sure if theyāre the new norm, but I miss the trusty Nomacork Iāve now grown fond of, as slow aging as it is, for good and for bad.
No pushed corks does NOT mean no heat damage. See my picture above of seepage.
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Got it! I should have said no pushed coks or obvious seepage.
Edit: ā¦more difficult to tell with engineered stoppers.
Well, guess dN has limits on how much they stand behind their product.
āHi Mikko, it appears FedEx made three unsuccessful delivery attempts, unfortunately we are only able to guarantee the integrity of our wine up until the first delivery attempt, especially in these hotter months. That being said, the corks arenāt protruding, I would let these rest for a week or two before trying. In the future, we do have a $15 ice pack add-on which would help maintain the integrity for a while longer in the event the first attempt is unsuccessful, or for just $15 you can add our summer Buy & Hold to your order and we will hold it to ship out once things have cooled down in late October (both of those options are available at checkout).ā
Well, they made 3 unsuccessful attempts because they ignored my request to reroute to a Fedex location.
By the way, have you noticed the old āde Negoce promiseā is not on the website any more. It also has been quietly removed from the email blurbs.
" Once your order has shipped we can only accept cancellation/refund requests for non-damaged and undelivered wine under exceptional circumstances ."
Yes, no need to lecture about shipping wine in the summer. But Iām done with the company now, not because of this one event, but after realizing they have changed their T&Cs and removed any satisfaction guarantee of the wines.
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This info on the dN return policy is good to know. Iām not going to ever have it delivered to my home, only work or a UPS / Fed Ex office.
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In anticipation of big Lot 500 headed our way, I went off and did a little research via the COLA website. The following dN wines are are what we have to look forward to very soon (most were 2022 vintage):
Lot 495 - Alexander Valley Cabernet
Lot 496 - Napa Proprietary Red
Lot 497 - Diamond Mountain Cabernet
Lot 498 - Napa Cabernet
Lot 499 - Howell Mountain Cabernet
Lot 500 - Rutherford Cabernet
Lot 501 - Russian River Pinot
Lot 503 - Napa Chardonnay
This should be the next round of futures as this does not include the very recently offered new wines. Oddly enough, there were no new āEleveurā filings since the summer of 2023 (despite the French offerings we have seen lately)!
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Why do you think 500 will be āextra-specialā? Doesnāt seem like that has panned out as advertised. And based on what is listed, I would be more interested in the mountain and Napa cabs than Rutherford.
Exactly, which is why I wanted to show the complete list. Have no clue about 500, weāre gonna find out together when itās released, but just basing that off of Camās historical bluster around the round number wines. Anticipation can be fun, you know.
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Seems like new regime has reverted to all California, all the time, and mostly all Napa/Sonoma, at least in the numbered series. I looked at deNegogiants and 416/417 were last Oregon wines, 370ās last Italians, 340ās last Aussie, and unless something is missing, last Washington wine was 240. There for sure are plenty of bulk wines available other places, they just seemed to have narrowed back to āhomeā turf.
To be honest, I think dN is in the right here. I would also be frustrated in this circumstance, but dN didnāt have control over the initial delivery location or the failed redirect.
If I am especially concerned about weather impact on shipping, I will either hold for the fall or explicitly set to deliver to my local FedEx store to hold for pickup.
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Sounds like an expensive lineup. 499ā¦more RC?
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John,
Thank you for the listing. This dinosaur would take a decade to figure out how to access the Label Approval page.
Many Kudo to you!
Could you please indicate which if any of these are from the 2023 vintage??
Thank you in advance. Cheers 
The main point for me is that dN removed the āpromiseā they have had since day 1.
That to me is the reason Iām done with them.
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