Saxum Hexe

New blend from Justin, dark black apparantly

Anyone got first hand input from tasting etc ?

Yes.
People who like Saxum wines will love it.
Others…

At $148…

$148, really? And that’s probably not for a magnum. Hopefully that’s just for Hexe

They’ve held at $97 for >10 years.

I love Saxum but $148 is putting me to the test.

From the release letter



The offering will include our 2017 Broken Stones ($98), 2017 Paderewski Vineyard ($98), 2017 Terry Hoage Vineyard ($98), and our extended age 2016 The Hexe ($148).

We produced a meager 230 cases of our extended age 2016 Rocket Block ($148). Due to the limited production, it will be offered as a wish request item.

Don’t buy everything. I’m trying to get an allocation this year.

Good for Justin to get after it. Sure, some of you may not buy the wine, but others most certainly will. The guy has worked his ass off for over 15 years to build his brand. I am thrilled for his success.

The wines have been $98 for a long time, i think 5 years or more so if this is possible because we have a couple of premium extra aged blends then im all for the idea. The Rocket Block is only released in years Justin considers the blend to be great enough so $148 is more expensive but its not out of line with other top of class US wines and is comparable to John Alban’s model of Reva being $98 and Lorraine/Seymour/Pandora being $160. People might be snobbish about these being Paso GSM wines and therefore not deserving of these prices but thats utter crap, Saxum and Alban are first growth level Rhone style wine producers and price their wines fairly. Hexe for $148 is way better value than all the run of the mill Napa cabs coming out at $150-200 and JBV for $98 is one of the hidden values in USA wine.

I think it’s smart for him to charge more for his extended aged wines. Manfred has certainly had quite a bit of success doing this, hasn’t he?

I completely agree with Frank - kudos to Justin and his continued success.

Cheers.

+1 Alan

paso prices are soon to be going up over that $100 number. l’aventure, law, booker ones, and juan mercado’s new project (he paid a record for paso land purchase, allegedly) prices are some examples.
i see no issue with this. quality is going up, and compared to napa and bordeaux, there is still value here.
my only beef is the forced wine clubs, ie booker, torrin’s new format etc. it’s just so tacky and amateur hour.

We recently visit Booker and really liked My Favorite Neighbor, but they wouldn’t sell us a bottle, even though we visited. We could only be guaranteed a bottle if we joined their My Favorite Neighbor only club or if we joined the general Booker club and there was MFN left over. We did gladly sign up for Torrin though.

mfn can be bought at retail for same price or less than their ‘club.’
torrin doesn’t have quite the number of sku’s (and in turn, forced purchases) that booker does. still for me it’s the principle of it. the old saying of club’s applies :slight_smile:

Interesting insight indeed - and yep, we are seeing plenty of 3 figure pricing coming out of that area.

The interesting thing will be to see if the ‘old guard’ of consumers is willing and wanting to cross that line with non-Bordeaux variety wines. Yep, there are exceptions in Napa such as Colgin’s syrah, but in nearly every other case, the bordeaux varieties are leading the charge to the astronomical pricing seen regularly in Napa.

The wine club and tasting room scenario up there certainly is changing quite a bit as well, with more wineries going to ‘appointment only’ and many requiring wine club sign up to purchase. Seems whacky to me, but those are some pretty successful wineries up there, so it seems to work for them - and their existing customers. Time will tell if it will work for new and potential customers when there are so many other choices out there.

Cheers.

So true!

For me it’s a no. I much prefer old world to new, but I do occasionally cross over from Burgundy to, say a Rhys or Williams Selyem, and from left bank to a Forman, Seavey or Togni. I have never found new world Rhône to scratch any itch that old world Rhône does not.

you very clearly are not the target audience :slight_smile:

All of my immediate family love these wines. Bill Gibbs generally has his thumb on what is going on over there. I will likely stay with the $98 wines simply because I’m not expanding the range of all of my purchases generally. However, my son and his lady partner really are passionate about these wines and starting out cellar wise (except that they will inevitably inherit mine). I think everything Justin does has merit, because he works really hard at it and that deserves the results he gets. Likely the last club I would drop, and I think my son would never let me drop it (just change the delivery address).

I think a lot depends on land prices and the economy but if the course continues, the old guard will slowly convert to GSM as they get priced out of some of their Napa wine clubs and investment continues to flow into Paso, increasing wine quality and tasting room experience. Secondly, the exclusive wine club model might come under pressure in the future when wineries need younger consumers to maintain sales volumes.