According to their email offer, all wines offered that do NOT have a wine critic’s score are listed as “excellent.” This includes wines offered in the low-teens of which I’ve never heard. Perhaps we have a different understanding of the meaning of the term “excellent”?
Bruce
Just shows, people in the westside are full of it 
: P
Not a Brentwood fan, but on list, and assumed the “excellent” (often in conjunction with scores) meant excellent condition (into neck, good labels and capsules, etc)
Brentwood Wine Co. is in Oregon, you goof.
Bruce
One would think that you could search the various QPR and “What a great buy!” threads here you could put together a solid store full of $10-20 “excellent wines”.
example: http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=939797#p939797
Or, one might think that “excellent wine,” when used to describe all unreviewed wine in inventory, is a BS phrase used by a wine store to move merchandise. Just an alternative theory…
Bruce
I only see “excellent” written after “Condition:”, not anywhere else. That’s the only way I’ve ever seen them use it, I think. Are there specific wines where you see “excellent” used in some other way?
![[winner.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/07ec25c9fd71159fe15d7f1ba5fad64e91238d0e.gif "winner"){kind=small}
Andrew–This is a representative excerpt from an email offer yesterday:
The offer already says the bottles are in excellent condition unless otherwise noted, so the “excellent” after each entry gives the impression the retailer is talking about the quality of the wine and not the condition of the bottle…
Bruce
I think it’s the condition of the bottle. As an auction house they typically sell back vintages, where condition becomes much more of a question than with current releases. I’ve had very good luck backfilling with stuff from their European auctions btw.
If “excellent” is intended to refer to the condition of the bottle, then their email offer is very poorly worded for the reasons stated above.
Bruce
Actually this isn’t true. The excellent (or in a few cases label conditions are noted) follows the price, including wines with scores, as below:
Bond Cabernet Sauvignon St. Eden 2001 97 RP 3 btl @ $300 excellent
Bond Cabernet Sauvignon The Matriarch 2008 90 ST 1 btl @ $115 excellent
Bond Cabernet Sauvignon The Melbury 1999 94 WE 1 btl @ $180 excellent
Bond Cabernet Sauvignon The Melbury 2006 94 RP 1 btl @ $190 excellent
Bond Cabernet Sauvignon The Vecina 2003 92-94 RP 1 btl @ $149 excellent
I looked at an older email, it has the “excellent unless otherwise noted” without the excellent following each bottle. Sounds like someone goofed importing the wine list into retail offer, but scarcely an attempt to confuse people re scores.
Most Excellent!!
Hey Bruce,
I am the marketing guy for Benchmark Wine Group, however Brentwood Wine is a sister company and we use the same standard when evaluating the condition of a bottle before it goes to market.
Dale hit the nail on the head – the person who put this e-mail offer together goofed and accidently added the wrong field while creating the e-mail with an inventory spreadsheet. This is not the standard notation for both Brentwood or Benchmark. As a rule, both companies use the term ‘excellent’ when referring to the physical condition of the bottle, as we both deal primarily in older wines.
Thank you for your comments; it is always great to get outside feedback on our offers. I will forward your comments to the team at Brentwood.
Mike–Thanks for the followup. There was another offer today and it looks like they cleaned up that spreadsheet/coding issue.
Bruce
Bruce
Brentwood is my go to choice to source wines for many offlines.
Being able to drive over and pick up with no shipping is fab.
Highly recommended!
I have had nothing but “excellent” wines purchased from Brentwood. They are completely reputable in my estimation. I’ve purchased some older sauternes and minor bordeaux, from the 1960s, whose condition made me want to cry. Almost into neck fills with perfect labels. These guys know what they are doing.