Rhys Spring 2021 Offer

Since I haven’t seen a thread on it, I thought I would start one. Started yesterday.

Just an observation: there are eight wines in this offer (including the 2018 Horseshoe PN Ungrafted, which can only be wishlisted). I think Rhys has four offers during the year, not counting Alesia, Aeris, and the futures offers. I know it’s the Burgundy way to break everything down into microcuvees – I mean, there are three different pinots from Horseshoe this year–, but I can’t buy half of what is offered.

I enjoy Rhys, but find them readily available at retail/auction, where I can get them with age for around the same price as new release. YMMV

I will be ordering…just need to figure it out. Oh, and there is the credit card cutoff… ; )

Cheers,
JP

I thought I was done with Rhys, mainly because I had so much of it. But as chance would have it, I opened up a bottle of the Family farm the other night and it was stunning. So I bought a smattering of everything that was on offer.

I bought a huge amount of Rhys over the years without drinking very much. It went to offsite storage and I let most of the bottles sleep. Still haven’t had a Rhys pinot that really spoke to me… although the 2010 Horseshoe Pinot was pretty good and the 2010 Horseshoe Syrah was epic.

Realized that I had more than 10 cases and put about half up for auction through WineBid. I expect virtually all of those bottles to sell for less than I paid (even ignoring seller fees and the cost of storage over the years). So, yes, I think that you’ve got the right idea. [cheers.gif]

I really like the wine, but I’m a bit miffed by their lack of shipping/communication on the wine I bought last year. On one hand, it’s free storage, but I didn’t appreciate being told my wine would ship in the fal when it wouldn’t be.

Sure, they make too much these days to buy everything, but so what? Figure out which ones you like best and buy those. Horseshoe is a favorite of mine so I was pretty psyched by this offer. They cost what they cost. You won’t make money flipping them but I don’t think you’ll save money buying them on the secondary market either. So buy what you think you’ll enjoy drinking. Ain’t that refreshing?

3 Likes

This. I am honestly sick of being lied to.

Hi Rajesh,
I understand the frustration, we wanted to get out everything in the fall and was planning on making a big push in December but the weather didn’t cooperate with us. We are continuing to pack and ship now and will get everything out just as quickly as possible.

Yikes, there’s a lot in the world to be mad about. Whether Rhys missed shipping some wine in the middle of a pandemic, and unpredictable weather, doesn’t seem like a very good one.

I find it interesting that people can complain about pricing, when tons of overpriced Napa and central coast wines are sold every year. What Rhys offers is absolutely top tier California wines, with attention to detail from vineyard planning through delivery second to none.

I wish my budget allowed me to max out purchase of every offer. I have yet to be disappointed opening any Rhys wine (with the caveat that I let my Pinots and Syrahs age a lot longer than most people do).

For me, the Pinots are fair value for money and I usually buy a smattering of what I’m offered, but I too haven’t yet had a transcendent one.
On the other hand, the Alpine and Horseshoe Chardonnay are absolutely magical, competitive with Aubert for most automatic “here, just take my money” annual wine expenditure. So good.

My allocation doesn’t show the ungrafted as wishlist item but was allocated 1 bottle. I went for some horseshoe chard and pinot but didn’t buy the ungrafted. I too wish my budget would allow me to max my allocation.

Overpriced Central Coast wines? Please explain . . .

Cheers.

“Certain overpriced central coast wines”

Feel better? I think you know if you’re in the category or not (hint: you’re not)

Compared to Napa, not many are . . . [snort.gif]

If you remove the recent Family Farm anecdote from Rob’s post that’s my story too. I bought a few bottles (Horseshoe particularly) on vintage hype, confidence that Rhys does everything in their power to make great wines, and limited experience that the wines are maturing differently than the 2007-2011 bottlings, some of which haven’t been to my taste as they’ve matured.

Agree with you all on nearly everything. I’ve amassed a LOT of Rhys over the years. Buy more than I drink. The recent Chards have been the most transcendent Rhys wines. The Pinots are always strong, always reliable, but rarely stunning and memorable. Not sure that’s what I need from my Pinot, but for me, others, like Kutch, are more memorable. And it would have been nice to get last year’s fall purchase last year…mostly because I was running around the house in a panic wondering how I lost a case and a half of Rhys (“honey did you THROW AWAY the Rhys?!”)…thankfully they didn’t ship it.

Now then, off to buy from the latest offer!

They have sucked at delivery and communication about delivery for years. Every once in a while they “apologize” for it, then they go back to the same old ways of 6-12 month (or longer) delayed from when we are told the wines will ship.

Honestly wish I did not like the wines so much.

You seem to have missed my point. I’m not mad about challenges due to the pandemic and weather… although when are people going to take responsibility for their actions instead of blaming everything on the pandemic we’ve been dealing with for almost a year now? My point was about the lack of communication on when the wine would ship.

What if I was planning to buy the wine to open at Thanksgiving or Christmas instead of aging it for a few years? I was told I would have the wine by then and yet when that time passed I received no update. Even still, Rhys’ statement is that they’re working on it still. No estimate of when they will ship the wine. If someone would have reached out and said that they’re struggling with getting the orders ready or said shipping companies are being unreliable and do I mind delaying my shipment until next Spring or Fall that would have been fine, but I’m somewhat annoyed that they chose the route of “lets see if anyone notices”.

This isn’t a big enough deal to warrant me not buying from Rhys in the future, but I am holding off on purchasing more wine until I see if my last two orders ship.

Ok. I guess because I’m local, and until the pandemic always picked up my wine at the winery pickups, I haven’t had any experience with shipping. The two 2020 shipments went smoothly, but then I don’t really think about it, the wines just show up and I’m happy. Their customer service is normally so good that I’m surprised there would be a lack of communication if you ask them about a particular shipment.

Responding to a few comments on the Pinots: my opinion is that these are the rare California Pinots that actually need bottle age to show best. I wouldn’t even consider opening them right away, particularly the SCM wines. The 2008s are starting to show brilliantly now. There’s certainly vintage dependence, but all of my more recent vintages will continue to sleep.