Luca or anyone,
Do you know the ACTUAL #329 bottling date? I would like to wait 6 months minimum after bottling.
I believe it was very recently bottled? Don’t really know, Doh!
Would anyone else appreciate a Listing of ALL the “Actual Bottling dates”? At least the month & year?
Sometimes the expected bottling date is a bit optimistic, logistics can often alter intentions!
Cheers to hoping?
This smooth easy drinker was bottled 12/17/2020. 2.5 years ago and it’s ready to guzzle.
No decanter was soiled in the drinking of this single yum. 
No need to decant.
You can drink it straight from the bottle. Pull the cork first. No wine glasses 
needed?
Seriously, I will endeavor to finish the remaining 1.5 cases soon, less than 2 years. Perhaps within 1 year?
So much wine, so little time…….
It’s ready now. Enjoy & Cheers 
With Beef & Veggie Kabobs
This is drinking really fine right now. It seems leaner than the 100% barrel ferment, 100% ML would suggest. Good acidity! Clean and refreshing! If you drink white & like Chardonnay, you should like this one. It’s a Yum
Not sure if aging will improve this selection much? It’s ready to go for my taste. I do prefer Carneros #23.
With Fish(
) tacos
Scott,
Near as I can tell, the November date on website is true? But if “The Man” is reading this thread, which we know he does, could we get a “solid” and verify bottling date for those VIP purchasers?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers, Tim
We had a 301 Pinot cuvée last night & I’m happy to report that it’s drinking beautifully right now with only a little air. Dark & luscious, with layers of dark pinot fruits & spices. Well-crafted & nicely balanced. I did detect a slight astringency/alcohol tingle on the finish which was not a problem but which might resolve with more bottle time. But it’s so good now, why wait?
Well, here’s me sh*tting on a dN again, but…
We had a pretty decent 40+ bottle mostly Napa tasting today, and I thought for fun I’ll pop open a #30 to see how it compares.
We had some pretty decent wines too in the lineup, Opus One, Quintessa, Checkerboard, Morlet, M.Etain, Realm etc.
And really, it didn’t. It was by a considerable margin the least favorite of anyone who tried it. Most participants had never head of dN and I made a point of not telling what it is before they gave their opinion. Most guessed it is a $30 CA cab. Not a dud bottle, just doesn’t rack up in quality compared to a lot of these. We had wines from 1999 to 2019 so it’s not “bottle shock” or “shut down vintage”.
It’s a good wine and clearly opening up, but just not up to scratch in my opinion. Having these wines next to it made it very obvious.
I think #300 would have done well here to be fair.
Poor dN 
hope your friends will still invite you next time 
thanks for sharing…never tried n.30, but is the competition even fair though? It seems like these other bottles are all at least $200 (some of them probably much more)…
Haha I did bring a few others so I hope I am welcome again 
I think it is a fair competition (well, it wasn’t a competition, it was set there for everyone to evaluate, but it wasn’t a competitive event). I’ve done this before with other dN batches, comparing it to $200-300 wines. dN value proposition is that the wines punch way above their price point. A lot of them do, but #30 does not.
It’s a $30 Napa cab, it’s a fine $30 Napa cab, but that’s all it is. Comparing it next to $100+ Napa cabs shows where it belongs. For example, a Di Costanzo Farella from @Erin_Di_Costanzo I brought wiped the floor of it. Not even close.
Just to be clear, this is not a diss against @Cameron_Hughes and dN, just that #30 ain’t anything great.
Lot 86, merlot, Walla Walla Valley, 2018: It took two days and hours and hours of leaving it open for it to come around to a slightly above average wine that, while being okay enough to drink, didn’t give me a typical merlot lot of flavors. Just a single note rather than having more stuff going on. I paid $18 which I guess would be about right, maybe a little high for what I got out of it.
Semi-related to get something off my chest, I get a weird complex coming to these boards. Almost always when I read a thread, I feel completely out of my depth because the typical discussion goes along the lines of people gushing about the “most recent couple of bottles” they’ve had of XYZ wine that I’ll never be in the same room with, let alone could afford to ever drink. I don’t begrudge anyone’s success or choices of wine, but I just can’t relate to most of the wine I see being discussed. Of course I look out for discussion of the more affordable stuff, which led me to De Negoce, yet I haven’t enjoyed my choices from them. And this thread is so effusive and gushing with their praise that I end up feeling like a snob. No one but myself is responsible for this sort of mental impression I’m forming, but at times it feels like I’m a man without a country.
JDorris, Thanks for your updates on 86. I bought it on initial offer, so I didn’t pay the $18 Bottle Shop tariff. We drank most of 86 rather young after decanting (as Scott says, even too-young de Negoce wines are better than supermarket wine), but over time I got tired of it. The same thing happened with the 70 series of Pinot, of which I bought way too much. So, I have 4 bottles of 86 & 8 of the 70s squirreled away hoping they develop into something that I like better. From your notes, I’m not overly hopeful.
Like you, I am unlikely to taste wines that reach the upper echelons of the wine world stratosphere (except when my nephew visits), but I have mostly been very pleased with the value & quality of my de Negoce purchases.
Hi Jonathon,
It’s a journey and everyone’s is unique so I recommend not trying to compare yours to the big ballers here. There are many of us here at the same level as you and there are a lot of threads on value wines, best wines at $15/20/30, etc., with a lot of great information. There are also many threads on how to navigate the journey, i.e., tasting across a wide variety of wines, trying some of the reliable standards for a region/varietal to get a sense of what they should taste like, to get a sense of where your preferences lie. And there are a couple of active threads right now discussing how your tastes change with age or you go through periods where nothing tastes exciting, even the upper echelons. I find the value of WB is how much I can learn from others notes regardless if I will ever drink a $2,000 GC Burgundy.
There are also many of us like you that aren’t getting the same amazing tastes as the sales pitch, we just don’t have time/interest in posting as often, but you can find a range of notes for many. My takeaway on DN is I have a few, like 240, that have been really great QPRs punching way above the price, a few duds, but most have been solid wines for $10-15 that I am happy to drink any day of the week and much better than what I can get at Total Wine or Costco. I just never expected to be actually getting $100 wines for $10. And there is always sangria!
In the end, it is just grape juice for me to enjoy with food, friends, and family.
My experience with Merlot from DN is so so. I tried # 124 and Bennet Valley.
None compared to Swanson Merlot IMHO.
Hey Scott - 2/28/23 bottling date. Should be through shock now but likely bottle bouquet a little scalped and the palate a little clipped but you should be able to get a good sense of the wine at this point.
Fair enough Mikko - can’t win 'em all. Having said that, got some stuff in the pipeline that’ll smoke that shit. Stay tuned
Popped a 68 last night. Fantastic right out of the bottle. Had it right after a 2012 Laurel Glen Sonoma mountain Cab and it certainly held its own without problems. Happy to have a case.
Agreed! Just had another over the last few days. Good out of the bottle, even better after 90 minutes.
@Mikko_Tuomi, thanks for posting this. Looks like an amazing lineup. However, your outcome is not surprising at all. Why choose n.30 against these? n.30 is quite literally a $30 bottle. To me it lines up with Antica Mountain Select, of which I just bought 6 on Vivino last month for… $30/each! Would have liked to have you taste many others I can think of, against these. You mentioned n.300, that would have been cool.
The thing about n.30 is that it’s as if the Antinori’s have one foot in Tuscany and one foot in Napa and couldn’t decide what the wine is, it feels like it’s half Italian, half American, with soft mountain fruit and tannins, some delicacy, but a hint of power and poise. To me it lacked a little complexity. It’s not a world-beater, but I really enjoy it for the price. But my guess is that DICO would offer a lot more complexity. It’s also over double the price, which I would expect, especially if I’m spending more than double. (Actually, that’s DI CO Farella Vineyard, right? That’s around ~$140 or so?)
What was your wine of the night? And were there any surprises? How did DI CO compare to the others? I really like that wine.
Thanks Cameron!!
So Recorded. #329 will be 7 months in the bottle for my annual Peking Duck Birthday dinner. 
BTW, I would appreciate the bottling dates or months for:
#300
#322
#385
#296
#307
#372
#388
Thank you & Cheers!
BTW, #30 was $16/750ml bottle upon release.
I paid $21.25 for each of my 18 bottles. I am very happy with the wine.
Yep, it’s grape juice, it’s just fancy booze. Taste is very subjective:
My wonderful wife said #30 would be better with ice.
Then, she gladly went back to her Tisdale Pinot Grigio on ice. $3.48/750ml bottle @ Food-4-Less everyday.
I am sure she would prefer her drink of choice to Opus One, or any of those other Fancy booze CS’s.
Go figure…
Cheers!
Doesn’t seem all that unreasonable given the descriptions:
97-POINTS and WINE OF THE YEAR
2021 SOMMELIER CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL
“This is seriously classy juice. Nice, seasoned oak mocha and woody resin notes out of the bottle fruit and tertiary aromas start to punch through with air…tobacco, leather, black cherry, black current and toffee”
Denegociants:
I picked #30 because I haven’t checked on it in a while and recent notes said it is ready to rock now. It also has all these crazy high points and accolades so I wanted to check if it drinks like a 97-point wine. This wasn’t a “dN vs. rest” lineup, that was just coincidental.
Half Italian, half American is a great way to put it.
Yes, that’s a 2014 Farella, was drinking fantastic. I didn’t take any formal notes, but the bottle was finished pretty quickly. Everyone loved it.
I also brought a 2018 Sojourn Beckstoffer. First Sojourn cab for me, and it was very very good.
The standouts for me were the 2016 Checkerboard, 2012 Morlet, 2010 Realm the Bard and 1996 Chateau StJean. Biggest surprise was that I really wasn’t a fan of M.Etain. I had high expectations but it fell short.
