So not only blankets from a wine retailer but “mystery” blankets. " similar to what you see here:" & “some are an off-white/cream, others are more of a grey tone and others a mix of grey and cream stripes”.
Can anybody on this board attest to requesting anything from Garagiste? Seems to use the line a lot - “One of the largest requests we’ve received centers on the indigenous pom-pom blankets…”
And the Instagram feed - ok there is one B&W picture of a girl with a blanket wrapped around her - am I missing something? “For photos regarding the blankets and the incredible Berber families that produced them, please see our Instagram feed:”
Perhaps a few, but not many. Of course, I’ve already said I wasn’t very happy with this case, and that isn’t really the right question, anyway, but there it is.
just opened a quite good Lehmann Portrait Riesling last week and was impressed. Only things I’ve really hated from Garagiste have been village Southern Rhones but then I realized I hate these wines anyway and can’t blame Rimmerman.
I think this is an excellent point. Any wine I don’t like is worth $0 to me and a waste of my time. I would rather pay +20% and be guaranteed I would get the wines I know I will like. But, I realize some people are into wild experimentation. It’s just not for me.
Jon’s marketing prowess is on full display with these blind case buys. This is an inventory clearance mechanism for wines that didn’t fully sell through so I am not sure why anything but pure randomness with most not getting bang for the buck isn’t the expectation. Jon manages to make people excited about clearing his shelves by talk of surprises and value but probably very few get surprises (we’ve heard of none here) and value depends on whether someone would be happy with a pure random assortment of Garagiste wines - given the potential miss rate, I would have to get a much much bigger discount to take a random assortment of leftovers.
Many years of buying from Garagiste has taught me that even with careful reading between the lines of the offerings and actively trying to choose wines that I will most like, my miss rate on the no-name stuff is probably 1/3 with the rest hitting the price point (or exceeding) - so if the universe available for the mixed cases is offers that didn’t sell through and purely at random, I think I would need a 70% or more discount to take the risk.
I must not have the vast experience that other folks have, I guess. There are very few occasions when I can look at a bottle from a producer I’ve never tasted and feel guaranteed that it’s a wine I know I will like. I can make some assumptions about the probabilities, but that’s the strongest statement I feel I can make until the bottle gets opened and I can actually taste it. Data points like recommendations from friends, reviews, familiarity with the region or style, and all sorts of other things can dramatically increase those probabilities, of course, but it takes time and effort to gather that kind of data. Sometimes it’s easier just to take a shot.
In other words, I certainly don’t think a wine I don’t like is worth $0 and is a waste of my time. I often learn just as much from a definite miss as I do from a solid hit. Naturally, I enjoy the hits more, but that doesn’t make the misses a complete waste.
On the other hand, the mystery case this last time out does not appear to hold a lot of value, and that fact significantly lowers the chances that I’ll try this again. I had good success with the mystery case the first time I tried it. There were at least three or four wines that leaped out of that case as wines of significant quality, and quite a few others that, while unknown to me, proved to be more than worth the price paid when I tried them (in addition to a few that were not). The discount proved to be significant, and the overall quality of what was in the box more than justified the misses, in my opinion.
Fair enough. Different strokes. Jon’s making a good living selling to people with an opposite point of view of mine.
I do think you overstate my point of view, though. (perhaps because of my wording) Obviously, no one can tell for sure if they will like a bottle of wine before tasting. I would just prefer to buy things I’m pretty darn sure I will like rather than taking a flyer. I known others like the experimentation.
Any clues to the Barbaresco for $19.99 with an AG score of 94? Might be worth the gamble on a couple, except there’s more than a paragraph written on the offer, which usually means instant email delete for me.
If it is La Ca Nova it would have to be an 07 because it is the only vintage with a 94pt review other than 2011. I figured that it is not likely a really off vintage because an AG94pt wine in an off vintage is likely from a producer at a much higher price point. My guess is a decent producer in a good to very good vintage with a wine that usually retails in the high $20s or low $30s. As opposed to many offers like this, he didn’t mention or even hint at the retail price and so to me that suggests not much over $30, if at all. My guess is that with a 94pt review from AG (particularly if a back vintages before more recent grade inflation) and at around 33%%+/- of retail it will be a nice buy.
Maybe a Sorrel Hermitage? or a lesser known tete du cuvee from a CNDP? I couldn’t even figure out if it’s a grenache or syrah based wine on offer. That would have been a reasonable thing to give a hint toward. Or maybe he did, and i’m just too much of a dullard to pick it up.