I am a big fan of wineaccess direct. They are a good retailer and have interesting offerings. One of their latest offerings was cases of the 2006 Havens Reserve Merlot at a very good price, which i bought. It had a very detailed sales pitch shown in the quote and links below. The only problem is that the wine actually is 100% Beau Terroir vineyard as it says plainly on the label, not majority Hyde vineyard as laid out in the sales pitch. It makes you wonder whether thay actually had a bottle of the wine that they sold several hundred cases of. Either way, I am sure its a fine wine. I haven’t opened a bottle, but I can’t imagine they put crappy grapes in the Reserve label. That said, the Hyde Vineyard has a pedigree with bordeaux varietals that Beau Terroir doesn’t seem to have. I am sure they were just looking at an prior vintage label and it was simply an oversight. But it still doesn’t seem like it should happen when selling several hundred cases.
“The wine was the 2006 Merlot Carneros Reserve, the core of which was made with grapes drawn from Larry Hyde’s incomparable Carneros holdings. Michael Havens had been a pioneer in Carneros and had sought out Hyde fruit early on. Since then, the likes of Duckhorn, Kongsgaard, Ramey, Staglin and Patz and Hall had followed suit. The 2006 showed off all the richness, structure and brilliance of Hyde.”
http://www.wineaccess.com/store/havenswinecellarsdirectdecember09/index.html?cid=185581" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;