Thanks! Will do that.

Myriad Dr. Crane open for orders on 3/14

And Mike LOWERED the price on Elysian, didn't he? I'm away from my desk but I could swear it was $175 the last couple of years and is $165 this year.

I just went looking back on this thread and didn't see it explicitly mentioned. I didn't buy any Elysian last year, mainly because I wasn't on the list and he didn't have any for sale at his dinner here. I'll pick some up this time.

2012 Elysian - $150
2013 Elysian - $160
2014 Elysian - $160

you might be thinking of per bottle cost after taxes/shipping are added in.

Scarecrow ordered. If anyone wants a bottle at cost, let me know...

Anyone had ADAMVS? We tried it at the Howell mountain event and were pretty impressed.

Yes. It's pricey but very good.

BSD, how much for the Scarecrow?

$380 is my all in cost per bottle.

A little Pott won't kill ya...

Currently drinking a 2004 Phillip Togni cab

BSD said:

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Scarecrow ordered. If anyone wants a bottle at cost, let me know...

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Yes please

Direct to Consumer Sales Up

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Several reasons: States have relaxed ridiculous, antiquated laws to give consumers freedom of choice. Direct-to-consumne has long been the only way to obtain higher end, rarer wines from smaller makers. The average direct-to-consumer bottle price is $38.69. The Average direct-to-consumer price for coveted Napa cabernet sauvignon is $97.93. The fastest-growing direct-to-consumer category is wine selling for more than $200.

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Limited production wineries (less than 1,000 cases) and very small wineries (1,000-4,999 cases) account for 77 percent of direct-to-consumer sales.

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Cabernet sauvignon leads in direct-to-consumer demand (16 percent of sales), followed by red blends, pinot noir and chardonnay. California is the most common direct-to-consumer destination with 31 percent, Texas is second with 9 percent, followed by New York with 6 percent. The wine world changes and grows every day.

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Maybe we're not so odd after all!

DTC is so popular in Texas because of all the other archaic alcohol laws in a state that is supposed to be such a business friendly state. I feel if we didn't have DTC, we would only be slightly better than the states with state run liquor stores.

We're also a "Good Ole Boy" state and the distributors are good at that, plus being in the Bible Belt. Hopefully things will gradually change. I thought the almost $100 price for DTC Napa Cab was very interesting.

Call of the Vine: Exploring Ten Famous Vineyards of Napa and Sonoma

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About the Author

Dr. Liz Thach, MW (pronounced "tosh") is a management and wine business professor at Sonoma State University in the Wine Business Institute where she teaches in both the undergraduate and Wine MBA programs. Liz's passion is wine, and she has visited most of the major wine regions of the world and more than 30 countries. In addition, she has published over 100 articles and 5 wine textbooks, including Wine A Global Business and Wine Marketing & Sales. A fifth generation Californian, Liz finished her Ph.D. at Texas A&M and worked in the corporate world for over 15 years before transitioning to academia. She also works as a wine judge in various competitions, and has served on many non-profit wine boards. Liz obtained the distinction of Master of Wine (MW) in May of 2011. In her free time, she tends her hobby vineyard on Sonoma Mountain and makes pinot noir wine for friends and family.

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AT DALLAS LIQUOR STORE CHAIN SIGEL'S, TEXAS WINE MEANS TEXAS WINE

Heading to Napa (staying in Yountville) tomorrow for about 4 days and I've swamped at work for the last several weeks and haven't made any tasting reservations. Any suggestions for places we could still get a reservation for Saturday/Sunday or Monday morning?

htownfbman said:

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Heading to Napa (staying in Yountville) tomorrow for about 4 days and I've swamped at work for the last several weeks and haven't made any tasting reservations. Any suggestions for places we could still get a reservation for Saturday/Sunday or Monday morning?

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Del Dotto still has a ton of availability on their reservation site. I'm going to assume that other wineries would be in a similar position given that it's still the off season.

cecil77 said:

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Call of the Vine: Exploring Ten Famous Vineyards of Napa and Sonoma

Quote:

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About the Author

Dr. Liz Thach, MW (pronounced "tosh") is a management and wine business professor at Sonoma State University in the Wine Business Institute where she teaches in both the undergraduate and Wine MBA programs. Liz's passion is wine, and she has visited most of the major wine regions of the world and more than 30 countries. In addition, she has published over 100 articles and 5 wine textbooks, including Wine A Global Business and Wine Marketing & Sales. A fifth generation Californian, Liz finished her Ph.D. at Texas A&M and worked in the corporate world for over 15 years before transitioning to academia. She also works as a wine judge in various competitions, and has served on many non-profit wine boards. Liz obtained the distinction of Master of Wine (MW) in May of 2011. In her free time, she tends her hobby vineyard on Sonoma Mountain and makes pinot noir wine for friends and family.

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Nice to see more Ags in the wine business.

Thanks, Cecil. That was interesting, and I applaud that retailer.

Hey, Cecil: opened a bottle of the Bending Branch Thinkers we picked up when you were our guide a few years ago. It's held up well. Thanks for the rec.

Myriad order placed. 2 ea Dr Crane and Dr Crane Elysian.

Only on this forum can I splurge $600 on wine and feel like a poor!

Tasted through this lineup yesterday, and headed to L'aventure in a few minutes.

Placed my Myriad order as well. 3 Elysian and 1 Dr Crane. One day I will get the 3L and feel like BSD.

And invite us all over for the uncorking!

Hmmm. Haven't gotten my email yet. Is that common?

First email was several weeks ago. You may want to log in and see if you have an allocation.

I got the pre-release email. I may double check when I get back to my computer.

From the first page of this thread, posted 9/30/2011:

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OP... your texas collection isn't complete without some inwood estates. there isn't another texas wine that even comes close. you should check out the tasting room at the vineyard at florence. the owner of inwood makes their wine and lives there. you can taste some nice american/french hybrids as well.

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Followed by several more posts about Inwood. Who knew that almost 5 and a half years later I'd have worked for Dan at Inwood for a year and learned SO much? The discussion about Texas wine and Texas grapes that followed was interesting, if, as we now know, inaccurate. It turns out that soil type (chemical, not physical) and climate (not weather) have little to do with anything. Dan is growing Bordeaux varieties just west of Fredericksburg with remarkable results. A couple are new Cab clones to the US, also Cab Franc, Petite Verdot, Petite Syrah and Tannat. I've been fortunate to hang around Dan doing blending trials for the Cabs and it's really fascinating. He works his way through various Bordeaux wines blending for style and as close as he can get. He's on a couple of 1st growths now (Latour and Margeaux) and the resulting wines are amazing. As more Texas growers learn to pay attention to yield (you've got to go pretty low in Texas to achieve the desirable phenolics) we're going to see some great Texas wines in the next decade.

Oh, and Tempranillo? Turns out it's a very forgiving, pretty easy grape to grow. That's the main driver in it's success in Texas, cotton farmers can't mess it up too bad, other than over yielding it. And that's the quality driver in Texas right now. Several large growers, growing a majority of the grapes grown in Texas just over yield them, e.g. around 8 tons/acre (or even more). It's short sighted as the degradation in quality puts a limit on the quality of wine possible. And no amount of remediation in the winerey, e.g. flash detente, will fix it.

Interesting.

So the climate of Texas can produce many of the varieties that we've been led to believe CAN'T be grown here? From a nice Chardonnay to a big Cab, and various strains in between?

Sounds like we need to spend an evening conversing and cogitating on this,...

Ultra-prompt customer service from Leah and we are all straightened out. I didn't get the email and for some reason when I log in on my iPad, the allocation doesn't show up. Tried the desktop and we are all set.

TP Ag '87 said:

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Interesting.

So the climate of Texas can produce many of the varieties that we've been led to believe CAN'T be grown here? From a nice Chardonnay to a big Cab, and various strains in between?

Sounds like we need to spend an evening conversing and cogitating on this,...

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Yes. Dan grows two Chardonnays. The vineyard for one is in south Dallas County.

Here's the other:


The Dallas County Chard we pour against a Premier Cru Chablis. The City (only 30 cases) is a Dijon clone that we pour against a Grand Cru Chassagne Montrachet. They compare remarkably well. I'm sure some of you don't believe this, as it contradicts all we've been told.