Huh, although I almost always have to leave a voice mail, someone always calls me back. Upthread I mentioned an issue I was having with their website/my dashboard, and Catherine called me in response to an email.
As a local pickup account, I can confirm that the team there are super friendly and helpful. I can’t make excuses for the over the top sales prose, though.
Different from you all, I use garagiste to get access to Washington State wines. My single favorite variety is Syrah from Washington State, and I like having fun with the mystery offerings. There are not too many discount providers out there that offer consistent access to Washington vino.
I know about Full Pull, but I honestly did not like their model.
full pull seems nowhere near good pricing. What really bothers me about this bordeaux sale is that it’s actually a good wine. There, I said it. But it was sold as a higher priced bottle mystery super Grand Vin when in fact the price is of the actual underlying label is less than the wine that was sold. It’s bananas. I get that people have better experiences with certain mystery regions, but one all out lie essentially has made me no longer interested. I guess I should hold my tongue because I’m staying on the list for the food stuff and eventually i’m sure I’ll see non-mystery wines that might interest me. It’s been quite some time. They actually get access to the Aglianico wines that I like that few else seem to sell.
They are great live…I still miss the old days when they were down off 1st in SoDo, you could find some unreal wines in the wine shop.
The mystery cases were cool too, as was the warehouse sale.
Yeah, the old SoDo spot was fun. Jon would randomly put 20+ year old wines in the retail shop, often from places like the Loire where back vintages were less commonly seen.
I remember buyng 70s Rieslings, always seeing SQN dessert wines, and other treasures if u took a moment to look (dig) around.
My Rule #1 for Garagiste emails…
Completely disregard any text that would not be objectively verifiable when you receive your bottles. Everything else he writes is just J Peterman bullshit…
I still haven’t forgotten those catalogs from a lifetime ago!
Second compelling K wine this week imo. Have to imagine K is sitting on a fair bit of stock given the number of labels.
They blew out the 18 and 19 Royal City on Vivino for like $25. There must be a lot of unmoved inventory.
K has a HUGE portfolio that they produce every year. These sales are not surprising to me, although their wine is truly fantastic. Vivino had this exact wine for sale six months ago for $25 a bottle, currently $30. I bought a bunch at $25, so $20 is fantastic. The only negative is the 2020 vintage, of course
Do people express concern with Walla Walla in 2020? If so, I’ve missed those discussions.
Update: I guess people do! Had mostly missed this.
I think the state had fires in 2020, maybe not specifically Walla Walla, but I do think it was a down vintage outside of the fires, like most places.
DeLille Chaleur Blanc for $17 is an excellent deal.
Totally.
I have purchased it as a not too difficult to sniff out mystery wine from Garagiste on a couple of occasions.
Interesting to see it unmasked at roughly the same price.