I was reading an article by Elin McCoy about coming trends in wine for 2025. She mentioned NDA,non disclosure, Wines, which was a new term to me. So my question is which notable wineries foreign and domestic are selling their wine, then having it bottled and released under a different label at a lower price? I’d like to know if there is a way to find the names of wineries. It may not be possible to know since the parties signed an NDA.
Read the de Negoce threads.
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along the lines of De Negoce - this is a 3rd party website (not affiliated with DN) that lists basically the “best guess” as to the source of the wine based on lots of threads/chatter on this site. again its “best guess” so YMMV
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I assume you’re referring to:
Bottom line, that’s the “ND” part. They’re not likely to tell you. They may tell you in person, if you have a good rapport with them. In-the-biz people may also tell you (e.g. “I hear winery X sold off all their vineyard-designated 2020 Cabernet to Y.”) Otherwise, it’s detective work. Googling tasting notes, also looking it up on the Tax & Trade Bureau Dept web site (cumbersome and not terribly helpful in many cases, in my experience).
Some merchants make no secret about the wines being NDA. Wine Access, De Negoce, any Kirkland wine. But the original producer may not be easy to find.
I can’t tell you about it.
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Much of this type of thing went away overseas.
DRC used to sell off wine, but it would ultimately leak out. 1999 Potel Gaudichots is a famous one, but already pricey.
Yquem has an employee only cuvee, but it isn’t that great.
I can’t think of a single winery that is selling off top quality juice at a bargain discount that would make it worth chasing.
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We can’t think of it because we don’t know about it. Non-disclosure. That’s the point. It’s out there on the market, whether or not we know it or wish to acknowledge it.
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That’s not true at all. This info leaks out.
My point is, the folks that are bulking out wine are bulking it out for a reason. It wasn’t that good in the first place.
Same goes for DRC when they sold off wine in bulk.
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Ian, possibly this logic is good in normal times but today, it’s different. I know multiple producers that for example produced 300 cases of a killer single Vyd Cabernet that they normally always would bottle. However right now, Their sales are down 20% so This year they only want to bottle 18 barrels worth. the other 12 barrels are killer and can be had for a song. Many wineries are hurting and need cash flow.
Lots of killer wine out there being made. Selling it is a whole other animal.
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My comments are about producers wanting to cut back and great wine being available (bulk). I can’t say my referenced example above gets made into a 30.00 NDA bottle. What I see and am told is a lot of killer 2023 and 2024 wine is available for far cheaper cost than paying for the fruit, the winemaking etc etc. and people aren’t just trying to sell lots that “don’t make the cut”
de Negoce #400 is a good example. It’s Bevan Tench 2020, Bevan himself said he bulked out all reds from 2020, not because of smoke/fire, but because it wasn’t up to his level.
But at $39 the QPR is through the roof.
There’s another one that was sold as a shiner, that was Robert Craig Howell Mountain. That wine is very very good, but the winery just couldn’t move all their inventory.
From what vintages? Intriguing, but how much of a discount are they selling off for?
I don’t trust wines from 2020. They are either under ripe, or smoke tainted (and in some cases, both)
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True…but what’s the reason? The wine being sub-par in quality is just one possible reason. Economics is a thing, and wine economics in 2025 are complicated. Others have also alluded to this, in this thread and elsewhere. Vineyard owners are letting grapes rot on the vine because they can’t sell them (https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/wine/article/grape-harvest-vineyard-california-19563052.php). Enterprising winemakers can get very good grapes for a relative bargain, which may entail NDAs. Nothing at all to do with the quality of the product.
Maybe. Sometimes. I wouldn’t rely on the rumor mill to definitively affirm or refute anything.
That’s the stereotype, the brush with which the entire Napa vintage was painted. There was a fair amount of wine made before the smoke set in, but no matter, some wineries and vignerons have chosen to disassociate themselves. That’s why you can get Beckstoffer Cabernet, for example, for half price, because it doesn’t say “Beckstoffer” on the label, even though it’s every bit as good as the 2019 or 2021.
Look, wineries have historically bulked out wines that did not live up to their expectations - unless they had their own avenue to move them (second label, blending, etc)
I think that we will see an acceleration of this in 2025 based on pure economics. The challenge will be that there might be so many of them out there that demand will not equal supply.
We are really in for an interesting 2025 and beyond in our industry. Put your seatbelts on and hold on!
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I was specifically talking about Napa with the third point.
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Beg to differ. They are bulking it out because they don’t have a market, even if the juice is excellent. You priced your Napa Cab ‘reasonably’ at $150. Really good wine, but it wasn’t moving, the market was flooded.
So, knowing the world was changing, you left half of the production unbottled, or as ‘shiners’ (unlabelled bottles), sold them to ‘XYZ’ for twenty-five bucks. XYZ relabeled them and put them out at retail for $50.
Et voila! You probably broke even, ‘XYZ’ made a bit of money, the consumer got wine that was really worth ~$75 - 100 for fifty bucks. You protected your ‘brand’, just in case the market comes back before an asteroid destroys all life on earth or ISIS takes over the US and bans wine; death penalty for possession.
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There’s a saying in the financial world that may also apply to wine. In tough times you sell what you can, not what you want.
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