So I had this today. It was described to me as right behind Sine Qua Non, but half the price. It was really, really good.

$300?!?!

HTownAg98 said:

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jh0400 said:

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I'm going to San Jose for a conference in March and rather than drive two hours north to Sonoma I think I'm going to make the drive to Paso Robles. I'll only be able to visit a couple of wineries, so I'd like to make them count. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

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See all my posts in page 150 of this thread.
https://texags.com/forums/67/topics/1933033/150
It's about 2.5 hours from the airport in San Jose to downtown Paso. I hope you have a great time. It's a wonderful place.
If you get tired of wine, Firestone Walker brewery is between Paso and Tin City. It's worth a visit.

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We went in September, and had a great time. We got a lot of great suggestions from HTown and others in this thread.

We really enjoyed our tastings at Epoch, Booker, Justin, and Turley. I'd make reservations for a private tasting at any of those rather than showing up. We did a private zin only tasting at Turley that was awesome. Justin wine is not for everyone, but their restaurant is pretty good and we stopped there for lunch and tasting flights and it was a great time. We like bigger, fruitier wines so those all hit the mark. Linne Calodo was great as well, but the tasting experience left much to be desired. We did not enjoy our private tasting at Tablas Creek, the wines were decent but not we did not enjoy them as much as we did the other local GSMs we tried.

All of those places are spread out and a 15-20+ minute drive from downtown. If you want to stick closer to town, look at Tin City, Derby, the newish Justin downtown tasting room, and beer at Firestone Walker.

TP Ag '87 said:

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$300?!?!

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I paid $110 for the Andremily.

Wow. I saw $300 on Vivino.

These showed up at the wine bar on Sunday.

Aged Monte Bello. I like your style.

Only about 7 more years til I can start drinking my '07s (the vintage in which I started buying these)

How was the Dominus? I've got that year tucked away and am excited to hear what's in store.

Wait no longer. It's good now.

BSD said:

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Aged Monte Bello. I like your style.

Only about 7 more years til I can start drinking my '07s (the vintage in which I started buying these)

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A friend of mine inherited his dad's cellar. It has Monte Bello going back as far as Ridge made it.

Is this wine bar a place you frequent or do you own it/work there?

I frequent it. A close friend of mine used to work there, and now he's a part owner and managing it.

My Realm allocation is up for grabs if y'all want it. I just have too much wine for a guy who barely opens a bottle a month.

Mine was very small, but after they kept $350 for the Houston event they never sent any reminders of, and ignored repeated requests for anything, like even 50% credit towards a purchase - they won't be getting any more of my money.

There's plenty of great wine out there.

Realm still available. Also, my SQN is available as well.

BSD said:

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Realm still available. Also, my SQN is available as well.

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In a semi-related vein, is there any chance the very expensive, highly allocated wines where you're deemed worthy of being allowed to buy some paradigm is ebbing? I know I've backed off on Realm, Myriad, and others. I know a few people who are also backing off of those kinds of purchases.

So much great wine available w/out the hassle and for less money.

cecil77 said:

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BSD said:

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Realm still available. Also, my SQN is available as well.

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In a semi-related vein, is there any chance the very expensive, highly allocated wines where you're deemed worthy of being allowed to buy some paradigm is ebbing? I know I've backed off on Realm, Myriad, and others. I know a few people who are also backing off of those kinds of purchases.

So much great wine available w/out the hassle and for less money.

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This is a good analysis:

https://www.svb.com/globalassets/library/uploadedfiles/reports/svb-2020-state-of-the-wine-industry-report-final.pdf

Thanks, that will take some time to digest!

One pull quote jumped out:

Quote:

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The trend and mantra of premiumization that pushed volume and price higher for the past 25 years is nearing an end

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Yeah, I will read that when I get some time.

Anecdotally I think some higher end brands won't see much of a fall off, of any at all. Screagle is still impossible to get on. They've "lost" my info twice now. I dunno. SQN is a 9 year waitlist. Macdonald is hard to get on as well. I can still flip Scarecrow to lay for my own (but I still offer it here at costs because I like y'all).

But to your point, yes, some are dropping off lists. I still buy for my wife and we've slowed purchases at some well known wineries. Some because prices are too high. Some because ownership changes And I don't have a personal connection that makes the higher prices worth it to me. Some because of stylistic changes. But it seems that in the market we've played in, there's always someone new to take up the slack. I'm not saying that's the case for every winery, but certainly a few I've bought from. But there is a ceiling and who knows if $250 cabs is it?

Interestingly enough, I buy more champagne now than I ever have before. Pinots too. Most cabs are from people I know well. I have a vintage or two of scarecrow left and I'm done (unless I can keep the good thing going).

Guys, Turfman from the beer thread is heading to Fredericksburg to taste wine with Mrs. Turfman for their anniversary in May. Can y'all steer him in the right direction?

cecil77 said:

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Thanks, that will take some time to digest!

One pull quote jumped out:

Quote:

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The trend and mantra of premiumization that pushed volume and price higher for the past 25 years is nearing an end

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The Executive Summary is pretty good. Like any consulting report, it goes through the Headwinds and Tailwinds. The Headwinds section is pretty enlightening. Bottom line is that Gen X and Millennials are not replacing the boomers as high end wine purchasers.

BSD said:

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Guys, Turfman from the beer thread is heading to Fredericksburg to taste wine with Mrs. Turfman for their anniversary in May. Can y'all steer him in the right direction?

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Why yes. I believe I can...

Can't PM him. Is there a post on that thread where he mentions it?

Howdy everyone,
I've mostly lurked on this thread. I've asked for advice a few times.
I truly enjoy hearing everyone's stories and learning as I've figured out what I enjoy over the years.

I'm looking for two pieces of advice.

First, my job situation is such that I will be moving from College Station to the Katy area with in a month.
Both my jobs involve quite a bit of road travel so I will Be looking short term for just a small place to make due for a couple months. That being said I'm not sure where it will be and being gone quite often, I've thought about wine storage facilities until I find a place I know Is secure and have an alarm set up and feel comfortable having my wine fridge on premises.

Any recommendations on wine storage around that part of the Houston metro?

Second. While I don't have any bottles I would call once in a lifetime or crazy expensive, I only Have about 6-7 cases of juice collected. I still would like thoughts on insuring? Value? When to insure it? What types of floaters do any of you use with your policies? Etc

Thanks in advance
Blessings

Welcome! And damn good questions. I've never even thought about insurance!

We looked into this through our off-site storage place in Dallas. I can't find the quote, but I seem to recall about $300 annually, if stored in a site they partner with. That was for 120 bottles/$15k, no deductible. We opted not to do it because I completely forgot about it until just now. We're about to up our locker size (pregnant wife = reduced consumption), so I'll probably look at this again when the Feb/March shipments are all received.

Quote:

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If you would go to the website www.insuremywine.com that is through the Ellis insurance group who we have partnered with.
They will take it from there and let them know the wine is stored here in Classic at the Dallas location for the preferred rate.
Have a great day and let me know if you have any other questions and help from here on out with this.

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I use AIG Private Client Group for wine insurance. Takes the stress out if the coolers go out while on vacation or something like that. Cost is 1-2 bottles of nice Napa cab per year, you have to decide if that's worth it for your collection.

I looked at AIG per aggiejumper's recommendation a year or so ago and the price of wine insurance was actually relatively inexpensive. However, I had to move my home and/or auto with them, and those were significantly higher.

I also looked at insuremywine.com through cellar tracker. But their site was down or they weren't taking any more customers back then, can't remember. Looks like everything is up now, so I'll probably get a quote.

Per Cellar Tracker, BlueWater Ins. also does wine insurance. BlueWater

For your storage question, decent amount of options. I use Community Self Storage off Voss.

htxag09 said:

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For your storage question, decent amount of options. I use Community Self Storage off Voss.

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We're neighbors!!!

Valentine's wine?

Thinking about Spottswoode..

Maybe '16 Chateau Clinet.

Both!

What are you drinking tonight?

2013 Ladera S

Starting with H Billiot Fils Brut Rose

With dinner, 2012 Fairchild G-III

2016 Herman Story Shadow Canyon Vineyard York Mountain (78% Syrah 22% Grenache).

Awesome. Thanks for everyone's advice

We had a 2015 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Reynolds Family Winery. So dang good.

Unfortunately water for me last night as I'm headed out the door for a 60 mile ride and 3 mile run (and this is a recovery week). Ready for this training to be over!