Thoughts on this Cornas mystery. $60! I typically have pretty good experience with the more expensive mysteries. Albeit more from Italy
Paris Granit 60 is my guess, though Paris Geynale isn’t a bad guess and would be a great deal. All guesses wrong or your money back.
That would be my guess as well
I just got these shipped and had to laugh a little.
This “very famous chateau” of BDX Blanc and the only vintage and entry in Cellartracker is this Garagiste offer. Their red wines have 48 bottles in all of CT.
Very famous indeed.
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This Garagiste thread is dead. Is there another one? Anyway, though I’ve largely sworn off mystery offers I went in on the 2023 Grand Cru Chablis offer (Grand Cru Chablis Smorgasbord!) today. We shall see if I’ve beclowned myself with the 6-pack purchase.
This is the only thread for Garagiste.
I gave up on mystery offers too.
Last Grand Cru Chablis I purchased as a mystery was 2022 Lamblin & Fils Vaudesir $50, I think they also had a Les Clos from the same producer, same vintage, at the same price point.
Waiting on a 2020 mystery Brunello.
Hope you get a good deal on your 6er
Bought a $20 mystery Cali chard that was a dud. 2016 Heinz “Rachael”. Big time hype. I wouldn’t have paid $20 for it. That’s the problem. They are ok deals but if I knew in advance, I wouldn’t buy 90% of them.
I don’t know about the percentages, but Mystery wines vary from, “I’d never by that at any price”-like the 2020 Willamette Valley Pinots Jon has sloughed, to “Wines I can drink but wouldn’t buy”, like the Delille Doyenne, to "wines that I would buy at the price offered if identified, like some of the Gramercy wines recently on the Mystery slate, to “wines I’d buy in quantity, but would sell out really fast”, like the Sanguis Lady Birds & Boy.
It’s all a carnival game…
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Exactly
Rimmerman is a better barker than PT Barnum. I’ve only had the one true bust, the rest pretty good drinkers for the price. But none match the hype.
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I agree. There’s been other chatter in this thread regarding the likelihood of a good deal based on region. I think we’ve all found that Italy and the Southern Rhone more often result in solid mystery deals. So I’m rolling the dice on this Chablis offer, but probably won’t be outright disappointed. That said, buying these mystery deals is silly at this point. Maybe it made sense 10+ years ago, but the industry and retail landscape has shifted so much since then. There are so many options to find ‘close-out’ deals in the clear.
(One hassle of mystery deals is entering the purchase into CT and then needing to delete it and re-enter the actual wine once it’s revealed. A waste of my time…)
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Exactly - with this massive worldwide glut of wine, and deals popping up all the time, there’s no compelling reason to purchase sight unseen. I learned that the hard way by falling for a couple of these earlier this year, after falling off the Garagiste list for well over a decade. After a couple of mystery duds, I remembered why I bailed from the list back in 2009.
That being said, I do like a lot of the food products they offer. Glad to be local so I can just stop in the retail shop a couple of tines a year to see what’s available.
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Smart (and disciplined) man. Do you have any thoughts on where to find sharp deals on nice wines these days? I haven’t stayed on the email lists for any other “daily deal” sites besides Garagiste, instead circling the close-out section of a local retailer and keeping an eye on K&L Insider’s Advantage.
There’s clearly an industry crunch in process. Double whammy demand decline (alcohol in general and wine in particular) and supply (both a glut and spiraling costs due to inflation and the relentlessly increasing costs and complexities of running a business in e.g. California, particularly one with a large physical labor input).
FYI, in this post from Tablas Creek’s Jason Haas, he describes on ongoing shift from red to white wines: https://tablascreek.typepad.com/tablas/2024/12/american-consumers-move-toward-white-wines-is-happening-fast-most-wineries-will-struggle-to-keep-up.html?
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The Chablis recently has mostly been Lamblin.
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I bought the Heintz chardonnay as well…of 2 bottles, one was fairly oxidized - and Garagiste refunded me easily. You may want to request the same if you suspect oxidation.
Thanks Mike. It wasn’t well advanced but probably more than it should have been for a 16. Early stages of premox. I may ask for my AJ back
Garagiste offered a Napa Mystery Cabernet for $178 today?!?! WTF? The vintage was also a mystery.
Ah, no thanks (although I did think about it).
I liked the 2018 Marcelo Pelleriti ‘Signature’ Cabernet Franc [Valle de Uco] over 3 days. The eponymous winemaker is also responsible for some Pomerol properties - Le Gay and La Violette^ - which are very good, and now costly/rare for the latter. So I was eager to see what could be done with New World levels of ripeness (15% abv) and a clean slate unhindered by AOC/INAO rules. The result is a creamy, full bodied Junior Minted - both bouquet and palate - example that has big fruit but does not come with Bordeaux structure. The bottle is premium looking, closure is DIAM3, and sediment is non existant. The back label notes that it was finished in French oak, and that it can keep 7 to 10 years. I found this tasted best lightly chilled, in a very wide bowl, almost like it was decanted. This is too big/rich/plump for the conventional AFWE (or stylized WB palate) but I like it, and will actually keep an eye out for in the future. Personally, I have been happy with Argentine wines made with a French sensibility, and the prices tend to be low, although one can’t exactly filter on that prior specific attribute. I’d give this a A- on my card.
^ Truly both figurative and literally a lifetime ago, I had the 1998 La Violette courtesy of @Marc_Hanes and at a different event, the 1990 La Violette from (now dec’d) Rick Mavricos. I have never seen this 300 cs property among any of my West Coast Bordeaux cadres.
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Any idea what the December 7 mystery 2018 Napa Valley estate Cab is?
WV Pinot Noir Mystery up.
“this wine hails from one of the most famous vineyards in Oregon and one of the most famous in the US”
Seven Springs? Evening Land? It has shown up as a Garagiste Mystery before. It’s not a 2020, the only unacceptable vintage in the potential range.
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I posted the Boyd-Cantenac Margaux offering here in case there was interest: Tempting wine purchases you’ve passed on—give others a shot - #1884 by ErnestL
I’m tapped out after BD16.
Any idea what the domestic Gamay Mystery Sunday Surprise (2nd Feb, 2025) could be? I haven’t had any domestic Gamay (single varietal) before.