Introducing Claudine Wines w/Special Offer

Hello Berserkers,

Wanted to formally introduce the business I’m part of, Claudine Wines (www.claudinewines.com). As a WB special, we’re offering two deals:

  • A 6-pack sampler for $175 shipped
  • 30% off if you want to go a la carte (but shipping isn’t included) with Promo Code: [redacted]
  • Both deals expire 9/11/20
    Now…what’s Claudine?

I like to call Claudine a “micro-negociant” as we source small quantities of surplus wine from high end producers and offer them under the Claudine label at a considerable discount. This concept of “white-labeling” certainly isn’t novel, but wanted to call out a few aspects that make us a bit different:

  • Very small projects - usually 1-3 barrels at a time. Why? First, we’ve found that at larger quantities, brokers often get involved, diminishing the value we can offer. Second, at these smaller quantities, there’s a stronger likelihood that the wine wasn’t intended to be bulk juice or “seconds.” Rather, our wines are a true reflection of the vineyard and winemaker’s intent - either shiners or surplus barrels that were intended for final bottling by the original producer.
  • Only premium wine - we typically go after wine in the $100-200 per bottle range, and then sell for $30-60. We’re less interested in finding $50 wine and selling for $10. Why? There’s a lot of players at that price tier, and it’s hard to beat the likes of Kirkland Signature - we’re OK with that. (All of us at Claudine have an unhealthy obsession with Costco).
  • Flexible purchasing options. We’d love for you to buy a case. Maybe 5. But we know that buying wine online, especially for the first time from a brand can feel risky. So feel free to mix and match your way to as many bottles as makes sense for you. Similarly, we don’t believe in forcing a club membership or subscription as that model feels inflexible and also gives us unnecessary pressure to force a project just to have an offering
  • We love origin stories. While we can’t reveal our exact sources, we do our best to share how we got the wine. On each product page, you’ll learn why this wine was made available and we’ll be as transparent as possible around where it’s from. We always aim to give our customers more than a generic or click-baity catchline. And where we don’t have an awesome origin story, we’ll admit that too. Finally, Compare At prices can feel like marketing ickiness, so we always share why we arrived at that price.
    Brian (the founder) and I will be monitoring this thread and happy to answer any questions. We’ve both been lurkers in this forum for a while now and appreciate the community so much. Hope to start engaging and continue learning from you all!

Welcome to the forum and thank you for the offer. I will prob check it out to try the wines.

Seems similar to de Négoce but more expensive. Their $150-200 cabs go for $18 per bottle compared to your $58.

In each case we don’t know what the underlying wine is, Is there any other differences in your business model (note I do like that you can mix cases) or the quality of the wine? How should I justify paying 3x the price?

Checked it out, and definitely interested, but see no option for shipping hold. This is a non-starter for NorCal right now.

Nate, we always keep an eye on weather and for those packages that have a cross-country journey, we use temp controlled shipping. For NorCal right now, we would typically reach out to you post-purchase and make sure you are ready for shipment.

@Nicholas C, thanks and it is a good question. I am similarly enticed by the de Negoce offers and wonder how they compare.

In full transparency, I think there are three things that drive our pricing

  1. Small lots. When we are moving 3-5 barrels at a time, some of the fixed costs of production just can’t be spread overs much larger lot. However, that allows us to be really particular about what we produce (we also don’t get the lowest shipping costs due to volume). One positive, however, is usually our wine is bottled at the same time as the winery bottles theirs. The “last 100 cases” just gets our label to ensure we are getting the same exact wine

  2. Futures vs. “on the shelf” product. We have to make a production decision before we know with certainty what we sell

  3. Product mix, choice, and sustainability. We built our model around servicing a smaller number of customers and they’ve told us they want. We are also looking to build sustainable relationships with a smaller set of producers to make sure we get consistent access to top quality juice. We want to balance getting the “best deal” with making a deal that creates a lasting relationship

This probably doesn’t cover everything, but each deal is reflective of the ec

I tried out Claudine and have had 2 of their bottles thus far and found them excellent. My experience with them was A+ from start to finish.

Giving it a whirl.

This is def a tempting offer at 30% off, prob gonna buy the 6 pack and maybe a couple others. Anyone done any sleuthing on sources??

Took a chance on this venture. If their descriptors are anywhere close to accurate, seems like a reasonable buy.

Nate & others - really appreciate the leap of faith. Forgot to mention in the OP - if we fall short of expectation, just reach out and we are happy to either send another bottle or return your money.

Thanks very much! Excited to try the wines.

Andrew, just to clarify, are the wines you are offering all identical to the wines offered by the source wineries? I know there has been a lot of discussion about that issue on the de Negoce thread so wanted to see if you are always offering the exact same wine or if sometimes they differ (and if so, how they differ)? Thanks!

He can answer but I found the FAQ really interesting:

https://www.claudinewines.com/pages/faq

Is it really the exact same wine?

Claudine sources barrels of wine that are ready for bottling. The wines are the exact same ones used by the winery - no “cellar scraps” here. We meticulously taste each before buying and take only the best ones.

Just placed an order; looking forward to the sampler pack!

I’m trying the sampler pack too. Sounds interesting, thanks

[sorry i double replied and can’t figure out how to delete…]

Hi David,

Great question. We aren’t buying wine intended for the bulk market - these are wines intended to be used by the winery for their own wines. Whether it’s 100% the exact same bottled product depends on the specific wine in question, and I’m happy to be as transparent as possible given the strong curiosity I’ve sensed here on the forum [cheers.gif] (The product pages also should give a strong indication, but if not clear enough, feel free to just ask.)

In some cases, true bottled shiners or barreled product that are 100% identical. In some cases, these are barrels that were indeed made by the original winemaker, but he/she didn’t use it for the original winery’s final bottled product it into the winemaker’s blend. In some cases, an “abandoned” project due to circumstances not related to the wine quality at all - for example we had an Atlas Peak Cab that came to us b/c the winery burned down in 2017 and the owners decided to leave the wine business - the wine was meant to be bottle by them, but instead they sold to us…so technically you wouldn’t find the exact same wine on the market, but certainly not “cellar scraps.” Similar circumstance led to our Sta. Rita Hills Pinot - project the winery decided to let go of b/c they wanted to focus on Sonoma (they weren’t aligned with the winemaker, who had independently decided to try his hand at Sta Rita fruit.)

Hope that helps and if anyone has a specific question about a wine, I’d be happy to assist.

btw Matt - thank you for sharing that FAQ. I recognize now that I may expand a bit to capture more fully the paragraph above. Was trying to keep short but given this new, very curious audience, I want to make sure it doesn’t come across disingenuous. B/c yes, the wine always is from barrels that the winery intends to bottle and we aren’t going on the bulk market looking for misc. wines to put together. But will also acknowledge that it’s not always 100% identical to a another bottled product you’d find. Feel like it’s pretty clear from each product page, but the FAQ is likely too simplistic as is.

update: faq has been expanded.

Thanks for that detailed explanation. The transparency is really appreciated. This sounds like a great project.

Are the wines shipped in styrofoam and ice packs? Interested but concerned about the warmer weather. Do you folks use FedEx for shipping?