Orders for Lot 550 Napa Proprietary Red and Lot 543 Oak Knoll Cab Sauv were made in May 2025 with summer hold. Shipment was to be made at the end of October, but I was going to be in Egypt at that time and asked dN to hold shipment until November. They said this could not be done, so I cancelled the $606 order. This was only partial luck for me since I had also previously ordered the same for my daughter in New England. Shucks her Lot 550 CS and Lot 559 Diamond Mtn Cab Franc were delivered.
Remember back in the day when you could have ‘bad’ orders returned or refunded if need be? Cameron Hughes did this for me with a Tempranillo order (refunded with no further questions asked). That gesture certainly cemented future Cam X orders. Should we ask Courtney Benham for a refund for this disliked selection?
I tired it over a four day period and it never reached the point of being drinkable for me. I have ordered over 200 cases of de Negoce and that is the only one I would send back.
Since I’ve got most of the case left, I Coravined a sample (from a different bottle), just to make
sure it was a worthy addition, and DAMN! That’s an incredibly rich and tasty wine.
The winner of that basket will be very happy.
Lot 396 2021 Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon
2.5+ years bottled, bottle 1/12. Into the decanter 3 hours before enjoying.
This is very good booze, excellent all around. Full, leathery and rich @ 15.3%.
Drinking very well with a decant, certainly will age longer and well. . with Ribeye
Randy,
That’s a beautiful basket! What a nice guy!
That Eleveur 2021 Sage Ridge CS is a real beauty! Delicious! Plus, Should only get better with time.
You inspired me! I just pulled the cork on a Sage Ridge!
Lot 38 Syrah was my first two case buy and then I had to sit and read all the negative comments here and on CT, but I just told myself that if it was from Pride, there’s no way I’d drink it until it was 6-7 years old. It has really rewarded patience. Is it birthday wine? No, but it is a homerun of a weeknight wine. If you told me it was a $60 wine that you got on sale for $30 I’d be impressed, for half of that it’s exactly what I came to dN hoping to get.
I prefer to drink Syrahs when they are 9 - 10 years after vintage. They seem to turn a corner at that time to become a lot less barn-yardy and funky (at least for my tastes).
Agree with the comments on the Syrahs. I had some 2014 I picked up for cheap back in 2020 from a winery that went out of business. They were amazing then but I just finished the last bottles and they were rockin’! I think 38 was the same. It needed some time! Lots of the early dNs needed time…
I always say 6 years is the minimum after vintage before you can even get a good read on a syrah/shiraz. Any earlier and it won’t be near ready to drink. I’m still just tapping into the syrah/shiraz I bought from Cam’s dN:
75, 279 and 344 are just now getting really good for me.
I have 343, 280, 353, 365 sitting around waiting for them to hit their drinking window (although I have tasted each and not revisited)
It’s interesting how any syrah seems to take much more time than cab before it’s really drinkable..
Nose: Blackberry, dusty plums and mocha. Color: Purple and opaque in bordeaux stem. Palate: Opens up with plums, mixed in with dark chocolate, earth. Balanced with modest tannin structure and good length on finish. Best bottle yet.
This wine is in a nice place, bargain at $12 all in price. (92 points)
Another fantastic find from Chris’ estate collection of de Negoce Cabernets: Thank You Chris and Becky.
2018 de Négoce Cabernet Sauvignon OG N.44 - USA, California, Napa Valley, Rutherford (1/30/2026)
Double decanted back into bottle 30 mins prior to serving with steak dinner.
Nose: Dark fruits, mostly cassis for me. Do pick up some blackberry and cherry. As wine write up states, this wine's gift is the aromatics. Agree, all the way to last glass. Color: Dark purple and opaque. Palate: Cassis, dark fruits, beautiful minerality, glycerin, wrapped around tannic finish that with great length. Excellent delivery. Slightly better than OG N.01 Cabernet from previous evening. Should hold up well for another 3-4 years. Why wait? (93 points)
Today we opened our last dN Lot 352 Coonawarra 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon making room for incoming new Cameron Hughes’ Cam-X wines. Little did we know what a QPR deal we had in this $6+ btl wine ($76 case shipped!). Oh, those were the days! A delightful, Australian herbal Cabernet Sauvignon rendition. 88 pts / B+
Random note- opened my last OG40 2018 diamond mountain cab last Tuesday. Had a glas night 1 and it was just ok (I really liked this wine as this is quite red fruited and an easy drinker). 2 glasses on 2nd night and it was fine. Vacuvined and forget about for for 3 more days. Had last glass on bottle open day 5 (expected it to be flat and pour it down the sink) and it was SUPERB! I was shocked.
I opened a few of these for lage new year’s eve group dinner we had on PnP and no one was impressed. Now kicking myself for not giving them a longer decant up. I can’t recall a bottle open that long and that good.
Note to self: Lay down your Camx lot 24 diamond mountain cab for a while and give it a long decant!!
I greatly appreciate the DeNegoce notes here as I missed the whole phenomena. Have loaded up on Cam x based on all of your reactions to De Negoce plus memories of the old Cameron Hughes wines. It is so helpful to know of the long wait required for optimal drinking. So far, I have followed Cam’s advice on decanting on the new young wines to mostly good results. I already like Lot 24 a lot, with just a moderate decant.
Great to understand how the wines are drinking 6 to 7 years from their vintage!
Much appreciated.
I also appreciate all the tasting notes on this thread as i have some dN lots in small quantities of 1 -6 so don’t want to drink too young. I’ve noticed that many of the wines will not drink well for the first few years after bottling and then will turn a corner and become 92 or 93 quality. There are a number of contributors who have taken 1 for the team by drinking through 12 bottles or more, reporting their notes until they reached the one that was drinking really well.
For those of you, like me, that have jumped from dN to Cam X, there are at least 2 Cam X threads now:
I follow these now too. Great for recent Cam x offerings and enthusiastic guesses.
A great time to buy the wines, but still awfully early to enjoy most of them.
This DeNegoce site is the one to see how similar wines from Cameron Hughes have aged and evolved.
The reactions to wines drunk too soon are amusing.
I haven’t tried the wines here as there isn’t really a record of the current DeNegoce wines through time. Cameron Hughes has left a long trail!
