Friend knows someone ITB but a retailer not a winery. He knows nothing about this wine or this deal but this is what he thinks:
“It seems like a second label deal, where they sort the fruit into the good stuff that they put in their own wine, and the substandard ones get sold off in bulk. Normally it’s anonymous, but some clever marketer has figured out that they can do this exact trick to hint at the producing estate and make big bucks. It’s probably Harlan or Screaming Eagle, but the bad grapes from amazing terroir are still way worse than the good grapes from a so-so one”
“he says it’s almost certainly Harlan and he says it’s probably fine for a $35 punt”
I think this is a bit of a stretch; WA will lose its customers if they sell shitty wine we can all taste in two weeks. He hedged big time with saying it’s prob fine for $35. And the tasting check from that Instagram woman is all I need to convince me it will be good juice.
But yes, I do think it’s inferior grapes or wine and not the same thing those wineries produce! But to say it’s “bad” grapes seems absurd.
I’m always very skeptical of this kind of house brand juice. Wine is so subjective that it’s easy to give great tasting notes and some seemingly promising, but actually ambiguous, language, even if the wine is just bottled garbage juice. I was under the impression that a lot of great wineries won’t bottle mediocre/bad wine; so, while I might be impressed with what they bottle, why do I care about the wine that doesn’t meet their standards? Also, if they’re really signing NDAs, which I have no reason to doubt, they typically can’t even give us hints that would let a knowledgable person know where the fruit/juice is from. It’s almost all just marketing fluff.
I’m not saying that it can’t be good, but the more promising the marketing fluff, the more skeptical I am.
Does anyone have repeated success with actually buying these $[150] for $[30] wines and liking/loving them as much as $150 bottles that you like?
The honest answer is if you can afford to daily drink $150 wines and it really is nothing to your pocketbook, then that’s what you should do. You know where it comes from, know what you like, and know the quality.
I’ve generally found the $150 for $30 is from WineAccess generally drinks like a decent 40-50 wine and that’s fine with me. But no, it’s really rare to be a $150 wine. I’m hopeful the current situation provides for much better opportunities and quality (see de Negoce) which is also a lower price point, aka, a 20 that tastes like a 40-50 is a pretty great proposition, even if it’s not a $125-$150 like pitched.
Did anyone buy the Radio Silence Cab she is referencing and try it. It would be a good way to help gauge this wine. By the way the Radio Silence Cab has an CT rating of 93.
Wow, that video hit every wine cliche except that it had ‘great legs,’ and saying it’d make a great Christmas gift made it jump the shark. Ask yourself, when was the last time you bought a wine and recommended it by saying it’d make a great Christmas gift lol. Selling it way too hard IMHO. Also $500 fruit from a current vintage but it’ll age 3ish years?
Nothing to do with the wine, but is someone’s body getting chopped into pieces in the background?
I ordered a couple of bottles because curiosity got the best of me, so I’m in, but come on now with this video endorsement. Clearly an Instagram “influencer” given product and/or compensation in exchange for saying nice things.
You should have “offers” available on your Amex, accessible via the site or the app. Click on that and look through them until you see the WineAccess offer, and add it to your card.
A big caution: the fine print says it doesn’t apply if you use the Amex through a third party like PayPal. You have to enter the card number on the payment page. That was my mistake. Fortunately, WA was very cool and canceled the order, which I resubmitted.
![[stirthepothal.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f40faec63ca1018898a40805efbf9f0066a3d205.gif "[stirthepothal.gif]"){kind=small}
