It seems like Jon is often pulling something old and almost forgotten out of the hidden stacks of the warehouse. Perhaps they are wines ordered, but never shipped?
Shipped, but not delivered? Or maybe their inventory control is so poor that they really don’t know when a wine is really sold out. I doubt he is getting these wines from a distributor or the source.
The retail shop often has singletons of stuff that had been offered earlier in the year. I suspect they occasionally unearth a misplaced case etc. When they had the big warehouse event a couple of years back, I was amazed to see stuff I recall being sold in like 2008, like 2003 Nino Jesus and 2005 Ch Mylord.
There are quite a few Scott Paul wines showing up on WineBid as well.
The food offers I have purchased from Garagiste (from pasta, olive oil, preserved artichokes and pestos to mustards have been excellent. Unfortunately, the last shipment to the midwest last week arrived with one item missing, but worse, the artichokes, mustards and olive oil were partially to completely frozen. I thought I had cancelled the order but didn’t see it in my email. I did see an email from them on a subsequent order and requested a later delivery which they acknowledged.
I informed them of the condition of the first order when it arrived and they credited my cc for the shipping and will replace the items destroyed with the same from inventory. There are one or two items that I need to follow up on but was please with the promptness of their action.
I realize that they can’t monitor the weather conditions along the path of every shipment destination during the extremes of summer and winter weather, but considering the notoriety of these several huge storms crossing the country from the west to the east I’m surprised they unilaterally didn’t postpone shipments to areas forecast to experience below zero temperature for long periods of time. Several of the wineries that I purchase from did that.
Legit same issue here. A bit annoying frankly. But they are probably fine.
That’s called refrigeration!!!
I highly recommend the Dossier Red Blend that was just offered. Well worth the $50 normal retail price. And hopefully we see more of their wine as their Cab, Syrah and Viogner are phenomenal.
Most famous brunello producer in the world mystery today, 2021 vintage. I assume it’s Castello Romitorio, that’s a lot of their Brunello mysteries and somewhat fits the vague description.
Romitorio was my thought too based on history. Put in for one.
Would be surprised if its not Romitorio. Good deal.
Alright, you guys gave me FOMO, so I ordered a couple of bottles of the Brunello.
Wow, that was really a sharp deal at $30. Langhe Nebbiolo is pushing $30. Late February, 2026, Woodland Hills Wine Co. is offering the 2021 Schiavenza Barolo Serralunga pre-arrival claiming lowest price in the country at $38.
I bought a few 2019 mysteries that turned out to be Schiavenza and have had mixed results from limited sampling. A bottle of Perno was very nice and surprisingly open, but a bottle of Prapo showed strangely advanced. Stranger still, it didn’t fall off a cliff over the next two days but never really perked up either. Other notes on CT reflect similar experiences of advanced showings.
I’ve always thought there is a possibility that, particularly among regular Garagiste Mystery producers, there can sometimes be dedicated bottling runs for Garagiste. We know that absent really rigorous attention to blending of lots that a given wine can show bottle variation. This is not due to differences between each bottle going down the bottling line during a run, but due to differences between bottling runs that use different lots / slightly different blends. There is always variation in the various harvested blocks, tanks, and barrels. There is opportunity to deftly segregate them under identically labeled bottles.
While that may be the case with some large production wineries, I’m not sure that small Barolo producers are doing a dedicated bottling run for Garagiste. Seems more likely to me that maybe a producer wasn’t entirely happy with a particular wine or particular wines and decided to move them on for what they could get. Alternatively, it could just be that this producer isn’t entirely reliable. FWIW, I’ve seen this producer pushed quite bit lately. The narrative seems to be “formerly under-the-radar producer,” or “formerly rustic producer with great land” (see e.g. Larner and Vinous comments on the Bowler importer website). Maybe that is the case and this producer is going places, but I’ll reserve judgment for now.
2020 Cerbaiona
Amazing, really solid value deal!
I think they offered same wine again in Sunday Snapshot. Got me both times. Exact same sale price and range of what its out there for sale.
some mystery wines set to ship for me…
10/10 - Brunello Mystery (confirming from above) - 2020 Cerbaiona ($77)
11/25 - Single Vineyard CA Chard - 2017 Rhys Bearwallow ($59)
11/29 - Sauv Blanc 96-98 points - 2024 Close Henri Otira ($20)
11/29 - Tokaji! - 2014 Dorgo Takaji ($49)
Pretty happy to try all these wines but I would say the only real ‘deal’ was the much-hyped Brunello mystery
