Took the one Bard Blair allocated and wish listed for the two that I was able to wish list. Only able to wishlist for one 2018 Levensohn and did so. Left the XX’s that I was allocated and able to wish list on the table for someone else. Also left the 2014 and 2015 NS Red on table for someone else. Would have purchased the Cab but was not offered.
Same! Oh well.
1 x 2018 Levensohn
1 x 2019 Nine Suns Grenache
1 x 2014 Nine Suns Blend
1x 2019 Levensohn - the rest of my allocation was Nine Suns, but passed on those
Same here. I did wish a bunch more Nine Suns as I had already planned to go long on this release.
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How much were the Hartwells?
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The Hartwells are $450.
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Thanks. Higher than I expected.
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Would have loved to tried the Hartwell, but I can’t have everything. A little too much @ $450.
The Nine Suns 100% Cabernet is spectacular. Happy I could still purchase those. I emailed Flora at Nine Suns last year asking/assuming they made it in 2019. She never replied, now I know why.
Any Nine Suns Sauvignon Blanc left?
Allocated Bard, Hartwell and '16 Nine Suns.
Will go in on Bard plus WL some extra.
Hartwell is almost Absurd price, will have to think about that…
Probably pass on Nine Suns.
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No Nine Suns Sauv Blanc in the Realm release.
Same
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Agree the The Missing Label Series prints are interesting and a fun way to compensate for the lack of wine. Wonder if we’ll see more art from Realm
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1x 2019 Levensohn only. Passed on Nine Suns.
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Love The Bard, so picked up two of the Bard Blair and wish listed more.
Even though I understand that quantities are very limited, very disappointed with my allocations. Have been buying deep every offering for the last 4 years (including many bottles of Absurd, Crane, To Kalon, etc.). I was not offered a single bottle of Levensohn. C’est la vie!
I was allocated Hartwell but having a hard time biting at $450 per bottle. That is a lot more expensive than Kinsman Eades/Bella Oaks and approaching Scarecrow territory.
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Thanks everyone for the comments and I’m sorry again that allocations are so small. We did our best to reward loyalty, tenure, purchase history, etc. We also chose to include all our active customers in this release which meant spreading the wines around rather than concentrating them only in a few hands. But we knew that would mean not everyone would be allocated every wine. For example, we thought it was important to first allocate the 2019 9S wines to members with a recent purchase history of those wines. But that meant we wouldn’t have enough to spread around to everyone and that’s especially true for the smaller-volume wines like the Cab Sauv and Grenache. Matt, we don’t have any 9S Sauv Blanc, I’m afraid.
In addition to all the normal factors determining allocations for The Bard Blair Edition, we added a slight preference to those with deeper histories of purchasing The Bard.
Many of you have read my past comments on pricing and hopefully you all know I welcome the dialogue. As I mentioned previously upthread, we chose to view The Bard Blair Edition more as a single vineyard wine than a Bard look-alike. Pricing for the 9S wines and Levensohn Vineyard is fairly consistent if not identical to past releases. I know we are ambitious with Hartwell XX but I hope in time to earn the respect for what we are trying to achieve with that wine and that vineyard.
Thanks again for all the support and understanding with this release. I would have much preferred a normal release of 2020 The Bard, Moonracer, etc. We are certainly looking forward to next fall when there will be more 2021 to go around than what we can offer today. But first, we have to survive this week’s heat and yet another reminder that Mother Nature is ultimately in charge of each vintage.
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Rafael, I hear you. If you have the option to wish for a wine, I would encourage you to utilize that function. If you don’t, please feel free to call the winery or email us to register your interest in something that wasn’t available to you. Unfortunately, I can’t make any promises but we will do our best at the end of the release to accommodate as much as we can. We know this release will require a healthy amount of juggling. Trust me, it doesn’t feel good to us either to allocate the wines so thinly!
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Thanks Mike. I have to give a lot of credit to the artist Sergio Albiac because it was his idea to do something. He said something to the effect of, “Fire ruined the human project of transforming grapes into wine. But nothing should interfere with the process of transforming ideas into art.” That’s Sergio, very philosophical.
The idea resonated with us and we thought, why not?! I don’t have a good answer at the moment about whether you might see more art from us. It’s certainly possible, and I love the parallels between art and winegrowing. You see that in our labels and various other projects. You will see more of that in the future as we unveil new artwork for some of the labels in the 2021 vintage. But we also need to see whether including artwork as part of a release resonates with people or not. Are members only interested in purchasing bottles of wine or are they willing to expand their relationship with Realm to include something like an artwork? We will learn something with this release…
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Thanks Scott. I think its a great idea and have always loved the bottle artwork. Just went back on the webpage to re-read all the art history and found it fascinating once again. Looking forward to getting these framed and up on our wall and see what you have in store for the new labels.
Scott,
Love the artwork idea and very cool that each print is unique. I’ll definitely be purchasing one.
Did someone say Grenache??? I’ll be emailing you 
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