First time receiving an allocation. I was offered 6 Bearwallows and the option to wishlist 1-2 of FF, Home, and Horseshoe pinots. No chard options at all, but beggars can’t be choosers.
The '08 Bearwallow was pretty bad but it’s been improving steadily ever since and I like it quite a bit now. I also really like recent vintages of FF (though I didn’t get any of the bretty '09 bottles).
Interesting, as I thought the bottle I recently opened was pretty decent and definitely showed this vineyards potential, which I have no doubt has improved each year as the Rhys crew purchased the vineyard too late to impact the '08 vintage.
Only 400 bottles so even lower than crushingly low. Is this the last vintage of this wine?
I haven’t had one yet but if I can find a bottle of the '08 Bearwallow in my cellar I’m going to open one tonight. No hurry to place the order since it is a guaranteed allocation. As for the 09 FF, I don’t recall the deal - are we to return the bottles or just report overly bretty bottles for a credit? I haven’t opened any of my 6 bottles yet. TIA.
No Russ, the 2013 vintage is the last. We just pulled the vines out over the last week.
Jeff - it’s your call. If you want to open them and let us know, that’s fine. If you want to return them for a credit/refund unopened that’s fine too. Just shoot us an email to info at Rhys Vineyards dot com.
Thanks, Jeff. I’ll hang onto them and keep my fingers crossed 
I agree with Russ here. I have enjoyed the '08 Bearwallow quite a bit and have high hopes for the vineyard’s potential.
400 bottles=400 people who could get a shot at this. I also buy the syrah regularly and was a tad disappointed not to see at least 1 bottle. Color me sad.
Started buying in 2008 and bought every release but passed on both in 2013.
I was only offered Bears and FF and
able to Wish only Home and Horseshoe.
No Chards, Alpine or Skyline even though i have bought them when offered before.
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Same allocation for me, and I’ve been a customer since January, 2008 and have bought in every offering but one since that time, plus bought from the Alesia offer this January and the futures offering late last year.
Tough deal, but I guess I’ve been spending so much on wine this year, maybe it’s just as well this order isn’t so crazy for me. I’ve kept my hands off most of the Rhys that I’ve bought over the years, so I have a good stockpile that is slowly aging.
Funny sidenote: This is the first time I’ve ever bought 4 bottles of a single wine.
Quite pleased with the small allocations. Makes the damage on my wallet much more reasonable. 2012 and 2013 are going to hurt, so I think we should all be thankful for spending less this time around.
To put this in context, I’ve been on the list from the beginning (2003 Sonoma Syrah and 2004 Alesia and Rhys bottlings) and have bought full+ to nearly full allocations each offering (around 200 - 250 bottles total) and I get a single bottle of Alpine PN, Alpine chard, and Skyline syrah, and 2 bottles of Skyline PN, with no opportunity to wishlist more.
This is not a complaint, the production was just incredibly low. No one is getting much of anything but Bearwallow, and I’m happy to see so many people getting at least something.
I have come around to agreeing, Jeb. It will also be nice with 2012 to have a little more ability to select which ones you want, even if you don’t ultimately spend more money and buy more bottles. But it’s all good, I could still spend over $1,000 easily if I ordered every bottle they offered me (on top of having bought Alesia last month and futures in November or December).
I know this question is annoying and gets asked every time around, but are these allocations guaranteed? Or if we wait until next week (to get to another CC cycle – this past one has my card still smoking), might some of these small allocations turn to zero? Thanks Kevin (or whoever else may know the answer).
Okay, I battled through the board’s annoying search function and think I found the answer to my question:
Kevin Harvey Posts: 1927Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 5:09 amLocation: Santa Cruz Mountains
Rhys Alesia & Spring Release
Post #94 by Kevin Harvey » Fri Jan 17, 2014 3:01 am
Brad S w a l l o w wrote:
markye wrote:wait what? the Alesia pinot is SOLD OUT? dear god. remind me to pull the trigger faster on the Rhys release in 2 weeks.
I don’t believe Rhys releases are first come, first served. IIRC, allocations are guaranteed for three weeks or so.
That’s right Brad. The regular Rhys release will offer an allocation that allows people time to order. We will include the “order by” date in the offering email but it usually about 2 1/2 weeks after the offering email. Unfortunately we weren’t able to accurately forecast this Alesia offer so the wines were offered on a first-come first served basis.
Very first offering for me and I was only allocated the Bearwallow.
Wish listed Family Farm and Home Vineyard.
Odd, I received a save the date postcard for the Spring release, and was able to buy 2012 futures, but didn’t get an allocation this time?
Anyone know if Bearwallow is WC or de-stemmed?
Consider yourself lucky. My understanding is that if you entirely skip two releases in a row (which it sounds like you did in 2013), you can be dropped from the list entirely.