Could also be 2019 Tendril Octave Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon. The drinking window and small review quote match Owen Bargreen. Winery tech sheet is for 2018, but used 25% new oak in that vintage. Looks like the $75 listed price matches as well.
I think you’re right. I didn’t see Octave vineyard on the Sevein map, but it could very well be the other vineyard that starts with a vowel. The Tendril pinot noir was a recent redacted offer and the reference to the winemaker makes more sense than the one for Valdemar.
Haha wow, what are the odds?
But looks like you nailed it Luke… Owen definitely a regular reviewer compared to Jancis.
Well done, Luke!
I had a few minutes this morning to research this a bit. Tendril seemed to be a pretty likely choice, but couldn’t find any reference to them when I did a text search of the FP offer e-mails for this year. Never occurred to me that it would have been one of the previous Redacted offers.
This one seems pretty low risk to me. Walla Walla Sevein-area Cab fruit, made by a solid winemaker and carrying at least one good review, for $20/per? Worth a try on a couple for me…
Michael
Two more Redacted wines today, a Malbec and Cabernet Franc from the same producer. Per CT, the only 2018 Upland Vineyard Malbec is from Lauren Ashton, who also made a 2018 CV Cab Franc. And the info about producer in the offer email seems consistent.
Haven’t verified any of the review info, but this one seems pretty likely to be Lauren Ashton wines…
Michael
Edit: The drinking window on the Cab Franc matches with the info for Jeb Dunnuck’s review (but I can’t see the text of the review behind his paywall…)
That tracks!
“Classic red and black fruits, earthy, foresty nuances, and tobacco all emerge from the 2018 Cabernet Franc, a beautifully textured, medium-bodied, seamless Cabernet Franc that does everything right. With remarkable purity, ripe yet building tannins and a terrific sense of freshness paired with richness and balance, it can be enjoyed any time over the coming 15 years or so.”
A lot of Lauren Ashton wines, I wonder how they are doing? CA wineries usually get hit before WA, I would hope they are doing okay as their site says closing the Woodinville tasting room and I like their wines, little bigger, but still balanced and speak to WA.
I always wonder how they are doing too. They closed their tasting room recently to move to a new location, and they seem to always have case sales going on at a big discount. They seem to always be on fullpull. That said, I usually enjoy the wines
Owning a WA winery as a family is hard work, not only from a winemaking perspective, but needing a strong DTC model as the opportunity for distribution outside of WA is challenging unless you are Cayuse, Quilceda, Leonetti, etc…and even then the pull thru on wines is infinitely slower than in WA. Even Oregon/Idaho/Alaska/Montana is a challenge.
Overproduction and sitting on goods is real then having to skip vintages so you don’t stockpile inventory particularly with cost to borrow the past couple years.
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Yeah, they seem to be closing out quite a few wines via FP. And, in general, my perception is that the velocity of the FP Redacted and FP&Friends offers (not just LA, but across all producers) has increased pretty significantly recently. Good (in the short term) for those of us who are buyers; bad (in short term, and likely even worse in long term) for quite a few WA wineries.
Seems to me that running a winery business is a hard way to make a living. So i wish them all to have success. That being said, it also strikes me that – at least in WA state – there are just so many wineries making – sound, drinkable, but not really that distinctive – wines, and going to market at prices that are (IMO) wildly expensive for what they deliver.
Not trying to pick on Lauren Ashton, but they seems like a good example. I’ve bought a number of their Redacted wines. And, at the prices offered (sub-$20), they’ve been good values. Better than most of the sub-$20 WA reds that you find on the shelves at local wine shops. However, had I instead paid what they were asking for these at cellar door, I would have been rather disappointed. Again, they have been correctly made wines that I’ve enjoyed drinking, but just not that distinctive.
Though I have no hard data to support it, my gut tells me there is a lot of wine inventory gathering dust at a lot of WA wineries. I suspect the competitive landscape will get worse overall for WA wineries for quite a while before it may get better.
As you are in insider, I’m curious on your general perspective on this…
Michael
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Not ITB but as a consumer I fully agree there’s quite a bit of very average wine being produced and priced at what I call optimistic pricing. I think that’s true in other major wine regions including California and Oregon as well (what is de Negoce’s bread and butter?). Perhaps it’s inflation, perhaps it’s the cost of doing business in the state, or perhaps things are need of reaching some equilibrium between production and demand with the incredible increase in number of producers in the last 10-15 years or so.
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I think there is a lot of WA wine sitting in distributor warehouses that isn’t moving and needs steep discounting just to clear back vintages and then a reset on prices. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a pretty severe culling of the herd, which is sad, as no one loves WA and WA wine industry more than I do.
Trends are leaning to spirits, RTDs, and lower/no consumption if you are drinking. Wine and beer are in for a hard reset, with less wineries, less wine, and less vineyards there is a chance there will be less adventurous pioneers as the price of entry today is high.
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A true “back up the truck” moment last Friday in SoDo. 13 cases from Full Pull, plus Rotie and Cairdeas, after a pick-up in Woodinville at @Erica_O_r_r . This was a year’s worth of accumulated Full Pull orders, and included 11 Redacted wines, which tended to be heavy on Lauren Ashton and WT vintners, All good values, I think, but I haven’t tasted any yet.
I did taste a wine I liked in their normal tasting line-up. 2019 Devium Red Wine from French Creek Vineyard. Mourvèdre heavy blend, that really seemed to fit my palate. I had just had an evening drinking Mark Ryan Crazy Mary at a work event, and this seemed very similar. I asked how much and Laura said $15, a redacted wine they had found lost somewhere int he warehouse. I asked how much was left, nine bottles, so I bought it all. It was Redacted 53.
My method of discovery 15 years ago was to taste everything, and then repeat buy only those that I really liked (and had tasted). I’ve strayed away from that for a variety of reasons, but I really think I should revert back to tasting more before buying. Some wines fit my palate better than others, and it is way too easy to click buy.
Anyway, fun day picking up dozens of mystery wines in SoDo. I had forgot most of the named wines even that I had bought and was particularly happy to see several sets of Barolo and Brunello wines curated by Damn @Paul_Zitarelli
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Holy moly, Chris! That’s some fine work there, and it’s nice to have your pickup to put to use. My buddy periodically sends me guilty photos of the stacks of boxes building up in his office, and then off to FP he went and had to start putting boxes in his back seat!
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I have a sneaking suspicion that Redacted 107 is RR Poet.
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2019 RR Poet Alliteration PineBrake Vineyard
nailed R107, Ryan.
from CT review:
9/23/2023 - [BigWineMan Likes this wine:]
This is another great buy from Full Pull. Jeremy Young scores this one a 96 and I’m not quite there right now, but I think this will definitely improve with time. The 2019 RR Poet “Alliteration” is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 15% Merlot with a full-bodied and richly textured profile.
Did a bit of sleuthing on today’s Redacted offer:
[Redacted 108: 2022 Red Wine Columbia Valley - $59.99 (FPP $29.99)]
Didn’t find enough yet to come to a solid conclusion (and have some other stuff I need to go do…), but have some clues that lead me to have a pretty good hunch that I know what it is…
The e-mail references that the first FP offer from this winery was back in Dec 2009. Fortunately, the FP offer archives are easily accessible here: December | 2009 | Full Pull Wines Offer Archive
There were less than a dozen wineries offered that month. Most of those are not Rhone specialists, nor are they ones where FP has offered a ton of wines. The one that stood out there as the exception was Syncline. FP offers both their reds and whites on regular basis.
With just a bit of googling on Syncline’s wines, found this one – the Grenache-Carignan:
The info about this wine on the Syncline site is pretty sparse, but the info matches for vintage, varietal composition, AVA, stated alcohol %, and winery list price. (the blurb listed about the wine appears to be a cut-n-paste error from another Syncline wine - even the label for the web page link has that error, though it takes you to the Grenache-Carignan wine) In addition, I found that FP has offered this particular wine in at least a couple long ago previous vintages (when it was much higher % of Carignan). I suspect that’s a function of how little Carignan is grown in WA state these days.
Again, nothing conclusive yet on this one, but a pretty strong lean. Just my $0.02…
Michael
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Well, based on the wine header info in the FP offer e-mail, I thought this one would be a tough search (given how many different “2022 Pinot Noir Willamette Valley” wines there are). However, thankfully, a quick google search with a few key terms found a K&L web page that quoted both of the reviews mentioned in the FP offer:
https://shop.klwines.com/products/details/1748296
Given the match in the review (Vinous and WE) quotes, the review scores, etc – pretty sure this one is tht 2022 Division “Un” Pinot Noir. The info on the winery web page is also consistent with the offer e-mail info:
I’m not all that familiar with Division, or with this wine. However, decent OR Pinot Noir at $15 is a pretty rare bird…
Michael
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That’s a great deal for that wine.