This is the new venture from Cameron Hughes. He buys lots of juice that wineries can't or don't want to try to sell, and repackages the juice and sells at a steep discount. One can guess where the grapes are from, but it is never announced. The wines are sold thru a daily e-mail but they recently added a store on their site for unsold wines. I am skeptical about buying wine that is advertised as "really being X" or "declassified X" but these wines are not expensive and I thought I would give it a go. This is one of their higher priced wines at about $21 delivered. Overall, I am happy to say, that it was a success. My advice is to find a vintage, geographic area that one likes, and a grape varietal as well, and if the price seems good, take a chance. And, temper expectations. This is not a $100 bottle nor even a $50 bottle, but it is a nice $20 bottle of wine. I bought a case and so far, there has been a bit of bottle variation but all the bottles were good and I would score them between 86 and 90 points. They are purple in color, mostly opaque and bright. The nose has cassis, cherries, spice, slight bell pepper. The fruit seems concentrated and does improve with a bit of air. On the palate, there are mild tannins, black cherry fruit with some cassis. Slight bell pepper and spice. Clean. This drinks easily on its own. A nice wine with a (garden) burger. It will be interesting to watch how this ages, but at this price point, its easy to open a bottle, so it might not last that long. I will selectively be buying more.
