As someone who is into the wide breadth of wines, including the Central and Eastern European varietals with less familiar aromatics (not to mention “classic” renditions of Loire Cab Franc), I can say that there is a pairing for every wine^! A Bordeaux Blanc with mustard in the nose!?!? How about something German with sausages and kraut! Slovakian Jota, perhaps!
^ excluding corked, moused, overly bretted, cooked, well past drinking window, or just simply nasty
I mean, sure, why not? Plus Garagiste sells those tubes of French mustards, which are quite excellent.
As a non-local, I’ve never purchased the food items, but it seems that many of them are really high quality. I don’t Garagiste combines wine and food in a given shipment box and I didn’t want to pay shipping on a couple cans of tomatoes.
Also, go for the dried pasta. It’s some of the best I have had.
The food items are one of the best things about doing local pickups at Garagiste. Always something interesting on offer.
I’m no good at guessing the Mystery offers, but gave it a stab by looking only at 2013+ vintages from Washington with 2+ 100pt CT reviews and then only looked for ones that had notable TN verbiage and were not too expensive ($200+), and excluding the vintages excluded in the offer. The only one that I found was the 2013 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon. Lots of 100pt scores on CT and one with extensive verbiage. WA also awarded 100 points (according to a current WineBid offer page).
Ref:
100pts - Cabernet Sauvignon
Dear Friends,
Just arrived…
We may as well keep the Friday craziness going.
100pts (actually, multiple 100pt notes) with some of the most incredible verbiage we’ve ever read about the same wine (from a host of different palates)!
100pt bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon do not typically trade for under $150-250+ ($350-500+?) so let’s leave it at that…
This parcel has just arrived today with the finest/freshest original provenance available (this is not a pre-arrival) – it’s a pristine parcel directly from the winery cellar - local pick-up next week.
This is the exact same wine, cork, label, bottle and contents as what trades out in the nethersphere as we type this. Why are we “giving this away” for $98+? It’s not really sensical, but all of you support so many offers throughout the year, so…
ONE SHIPMENT ONLY at this $ (we cannot obtain a second parcel at any $).
FIRST COME FIRST SERVED up to 6/person until we run out:
Cabernet Sauvignon Mystery 750ml (USA) · $98.76
(multiple 100pts)
(Some of the most incredible verbiage you will read – a whirlwind of high scores; this is NOT from 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2020 or 2022)
Possible. But its Garagiste so expect every word be used to the fullest artistical freedom possible.
Like I mentioned earlier, they had a white Bordeaux that was from “a very famous chateau indeed”, and only entries in CT were from the Garagiste mystery offering. There’s always some “Tasting Panel” somewhere that hands out 100pt scores.
I think they have offered Quilceda before though, so that’s a possible candidate for sure.
I was spared the expense because it was sold out in less than the hour it took me to notice the offer.
$100 for Quilceda Creek? I don’t think so.
The points could be from Decanter, Suckling, Dunnuck, Bargreen, WE, whoever, the wine must be impressive at some level, but “perfect” wines are never discounted.
It’s Garagiste. The 100 points could be from an obscure Chinese amateur wine board. He never lies, but boy does he stretch the truth.
Did he say this vintage of the wine received a 100 pt score or this wine has received a 100 point score? The mystery wine could be a 90 point wine and not perfect.
I guess it might technically be possible to read what he wrote as allowing for that possibility, but even wearing prescription Rimmerman skeptical spectacles, I think it’s very unlikely.
You likely know better than I, but I did see some bottles via wine-searcher.com (not a Pro subscriber) of that 2013 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon offered by one retailer at $125 with some bottles available on WineBid for $165. Is it possible the producer has a library program and has decided that sell-through in today’s difficult market isn’t sufficient for some wine-vintage’s drinking windows?
(The CT window on this wine is 2020 and 2034, but it’s based on 48 user opinions, which strongly suggests the window is based on all vintages’ user-entered drinking windows rather than consensus for this particular vintage. CT changed the way community drinking windows are displayed roughly a year ago to use all vintages’ drinking windows of a wine for a given vintage if that vintage did not have a minimum number of user-entered drinking windows - I think the minimum is 3.)
I can’t easily sort all ratings, but WS has never rated any wine wASHINGTON higher than98 points.
WS (in?)famously gave the’88 Mouton 100 points back in the day, so they have done it. Likewise for vintages with the again (in?)famous rating for 2000 Barolo. I haven’t subscribed in a long time so I don’t know if they’ve given a 100 more recently.
I’d mentioned WA 100 pts for the 2013 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon.
Edited- Washington wine. Still sure it is not QC, which sells in back vintages for more like $150.
This one is still showing as “Prearrived”
Resisted all the BF mysteries so far, but caved on 2021 Chianti Classico.
Ditto. His track record on Italy is good. And I’ve drank most of my Chiantis so need more.
I got suckered into the Sauvignon Blanc. Seems low risk (if you like SB).