Lot 25 is the Calistoga Cab…maybe Lot 20 Pet Gap Pinot?
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Lot 35, thanks for the catch!
ahh, gotcha. I had the same impression of it a couple weeks ago…that wine took some time to settle in for sure but it is indeed showing nicely now.
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We Are So Back! 
LOT 3 Napa Valley Cabernet
Letting the bottle decant but this has definitely improved over the past 7 months. Cheers everyone!
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Lot 40 is definitely boom boom juice. Started the night off with a 2023 Tenuta San Guido Guidalberto since I had never tried one (and just don’t see paying for the grand vin) and it was tight so figured to put a cork in it and open up a Lot 40. PnP this is rich, luscious and open for business
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Keep your hands off these for now.
NV Cam X Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 50
Dark opaque youthful purple. Medium extract, medium+ viscosity. Shut down nose with purple/black fruits, cigar leaf, light touch of menthol, some floral notes too.
Palate is fresh, youthful, has nice lifted acidity, ripe, juicy, still pretty straight forward and not very complex.
Finish is with Welch’s grape jelly, grainy tannins, not very complex.
It’s way too young to evaluate right now, it almost tastes like a barrel sample with the sort of disjointed notes of grape jelly, chocolate, and unintegrated tannins.
With air, there is clear improvement on the Welch department, the tannins are still grainy but it’s not nearly as jammy as PnP. Still, give this at least a year.
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Please list Lot description when reporting wine experiences. This would just make it easier for quick reading reference; as, Lot 40 Cab Sauv, Lot 40 Coombsville CS, etc. Good to know that this is ‘open for business’, but I’ll just have to wait with my gift bottles for the time being. It will be fun comparing this CX Lot 40 $16 btl 2024 CS to dN’s Lot 390 $29 btl Coombsville 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon someday. / I wonder how this compares to the CX Lot 7 Coombsville 2023 Cab Sauv?
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Boris,
I had the same question regarding Lot 7 vs Lot 40 and Cam responded. Seems to match up with the early Lot 40 reviews from people. I didn’t by Lot 40 on release but that will change soon. I am a fan of Lot 7, currently inside my Top 5 CamX wines I’ve tried.
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I had dN390 last week, and it was outstanding! Haven’t popped a Cam X 40 yet
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yep, gonna take a while for the various vintage components to integrate…hopefully look better in the Fall or mid-Summer maybe if we are lucky.
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If dN is anything to go by, give the Pinots some time and they’ll be really good. With that said, lot 35 seems like a loser.
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This is super helpful. I was a little afraid that I would have given away all my 35 by the time it was worth drinking.
28 and 35 makes really good cooking wine, porch pounder and sips for in laws that I don’t like.
Reading all of this made me check to see if my offsite storage is running a special. I hate to pay to store such inexpensive wine, but paying $1/bottle/yr to hide these and free up some other storage space would probably be smart.
Thanks Jonah.
I drink few domestic Pinot Noir these days, and mostly Oregon. Oregon does reward mid to long term aging. I’m pretty much out of the California PN all together. Down to 14 bottles including 3 of Lot 8
I kinda felt the same way about X35 Pinot when I drank my first couple bottle a couple weeks after arrival. I haven’t touched it since then until a couple nights ago. It has improved significantly and even held up very well if not better on night 2. I will be giving this more time.
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time……is a wondeful thing!!!
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Needing to use and pay for off-site storage definitely adds a twist to using CamX (/de negoce/etc.) wines. Though I’ve certainly strained my wine storage space, I do have it. Hence storage costs me little. Out of 7 cases purchased/delivered of CamX reds, I’ve only had one 3-day-decanted bottle of Lot 20 (I was curious and assured here it was drinking okay with long decant).
I’m aware that neither I nor anyone else is capable of evaluating a wine in bottle shock, so I don’t try. I’m also aware I get futures offers before the original winery would release the wine, because it’s wine that still wouldn’t show well without extensive decanting. The CamX wines I’ve gotten are not even to the normal point where one would start to age a wine! They are not even “young” yet! The winery is giving me a kickback to store their wine for them until it would be at least ready to sell.
I get CamX wine (and Casemates, and the odd events like UC bankruptcy sale) because I don’t have enough money to buy the quality of wine I like. So I cheat, with these opportunities. If I were to drink a CamX red (in particular) red when I first get it, I should expect it to show badly. I’d be throwing away my “buy cheap drink great” strategy. Trying a CamX wine when you first get it, not liking it, and using it for stew and non-sophiticates and giving it away is okay I guess. At least you’re not spending a lot of money for your cheap-wine experience. And if you have a lot of money to spare, why not? Or, as is the theme of this post, if you have wine storage costs. Maybe you get CamX because of the mystery/sleuthing fun aspect. It would be challenging to try to glean/guess what CamX wine to keep and which to unload. Having to pay for storage is definitely a drawback to using CamX.
This year I’m starting to drink the bulk of my 2020/2021 de Negoce wine. I’m currently getting rave reviews for the dN Lot 349 2021 Barossa Shiraz I’m serving this winter/spring. It’s still young, but at least not insanely young. I hope to be able to give my current CamX buys more time.
I’m excited about Lot 24, Lot 27, Lot 5, others that I’ve gotten. Have I tried any? No. Remember, I’ve got the storage space, but not enough money. For me those are expensive investments, for special ocassions. If you’ve got the money, but are short on storage space, then that’s a different situation. Sampling and trying to guess their future would make sense.
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Great perspectives, Patrick! And appropriate patience.
For me, it’s great to try them at 6 months and then at a year. Just to see where they are.
Seems like you have the Cam x experience figured out to optimize cost to value, quality.
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That’s a good philosophy, Patrick. I would expect Cam X wines to age well and drink well for quite some time.
I never purchased any dN but on a small sample size of 9 bottles of the original Cameron Hughes project. My average holding period was 10 years from vintage. The range was 3 years to 19 years.
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