I believe this is part of the separation agreement between KB and Cirq (Michael Browne).
Going forward, Cirq will deal with other sources than Treehouse and Bootleggers.
We discussed this with Michael when we visited with him last summer.
That’s my understanding as well. I believe that KB and Cirq each got half the grapes (or something like that) and this year they’re each offering their own take on these two vineyards. I expect a similar offer from Cirq to surface sooner or later. Going forward, however, I believe these vineyards will end up solely in KB wines.
I didn’t see a price yet for the KB estate wines. Anyone?
I called KB yesterday. Both KB and Cirq will be producing wines from both vineyards this year and for at least a couple into the future. The KB price will be $120.
I finally got an email but was told I don’t have an allocation. Went to my order history to see if my order from last year was there and it says “due to brand transition, we were unable to transfer previous orders, but will do so moving forward.”
Seems surprising that they can’t keep previous customer orders when it’s under the same label.
Just glanced at CellarTracker, and interestingly Kosta offered me a case of each of the 2016’s (Bootleggers and Treehouse) versus a bottle each from Cirq.
It’s the same label, but from another thread seems like it was a very complex division of assets. Cirq is not Cirq as it was before, it’s a different company that obtained rights to the name upon the split up of the first Cirq, which was some type of JV with Kosta Browne.
That said, given they managed to do allocations based on some type of purchase history, I would guess the past order information was more of an e-commerce issue where they changed providers. On the other hand, it could be that information about past orders was negotiated and Cirq was able to retain only certain portions of it - e.g., name, address, and number of bottles purchased/date, but not the actual order info.