Longtime readers know Fossil gets its name from its historic blend. In the early 1800s, winemakers in a famous wine region on the other side of the pond (the Atlantic, that is), added Syrah to a traditional Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend. They created a blend that fetched some of the highest prices in the region – until the practice was shelved under newly enacted winemaking laws. We at Meeker are pleased to dust off this historic winemaking “fossil” for your enjoyment!
The 2018 is amply structured and feels at first like a Merlot-centered Meeker “Four Kings”. But there is a gentleness and lushness to the edges of the wine that only Syrah can bring. Patient, elegant white cherry and Cab’s herbaceous streak open to a warm mid-palate that bridges racy elegance with warmth of just a touch of toffee and toasted oak. The finish shows the grip of our more classic Bordeaux-grape executions, but more gentle. This is a bit tight still, but will drink beautifully now through at least National Donut Day on June 5th, 2037.
The Meeker family takes pride in an unconventional attitude towards wine. As the matriarch, Molly, would love to tell you with a smile, “We take nothing seriously but the wine itself.”
Charles and Molly Meeker bought their first vineyard at the end of West Dry Creek Road in Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Valley in 1977. In 1984, Charlie and Molly established their winery on the vineyard site with Charlie as the winemaker. In its early years, the winery specialized in Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. Today, the Meeker Vineyard continues to operate as a family operation. Second-generation winemaker, Lucas Meeker, joined the winery full-time in 2007 and is now the Head Winemaker and in charge of daily operations. Molly is the President and is in charge of marketing and accounting. Until his passing, Charlie was CEO and our resident historian, and he often shared his stories about the wine business and his career as a lawyer, movie producer, and studio executive in Los Angeles.
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, ID, IL, IN, IA, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NC, ND, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, WY
@rjquillin My general framework of suggestion is that we are very comfortable saying that our Cabs and Cab-related blends will go 25+ from bottling, so roughly 28+ from vintage year.
The truth is that most of our 80s Cabs drink beautifully, and the vast majority of the 90s Cabs are still in good to great shape.
I don’t have time to give you the 18,000 word explanation about how I’ve tweaked some of our thinking and protocol since I took over the winemaking, but the short version is:
We’ve adjusted how we think about acidity to frame more around pH than TA, and then we’ve concreted new ideas about what we’re looking for. The result is that our wines should age more consistently, but perhaps not quite as long as our longest aging vintages of the past. Still a bit too early to know.
The 2013 vintage was before I started making some of those adjustments, and though I haven’t tasted it lately I’d say you have at least another decade, maybe two.
I would also add that I really appreciate our Cabs most in the 7-10 year (from vintage) and 18-23 year (from vintage) windows. But, we intentionally tell people that the whole point of our style is to build a wine that will progress and evolve for a long time, and where in that curve your preferences and interests are is something I can’t predict.
Personally, I like big wines when they’re too young (like dumb teenagers with gas money) and when they’re about to start feeling old (like a jaded, middle-aged winemaker coming to terms with his 40th birthday… tomorrow). I like fresh and medium-bodied wines when they’re hyper fresh or past the fresh window and have awkward giraffe vibes. But I grew up in a winery so my cellar palate and weird preferences are chaos.
@lucasmeeker
As always, thank you for your active participation here and for your dedication to making such wonderful wines. I hope you have an amazing 40th birthday!
Many thanks again for the opportunity to serve as a rat. This time almost didn’t happen thanks to UPS, but that’s a whole story that we are all too familiar with and I won’t go into it. Other than to say it was finally delivered to the UPS store 30 minutes before they closed today, and I made it to pick up with about a minute to spare.
The bottle did not have any time to rest so we just went after it. The pop and pour reveals a dark, opaque garnet colored wine with decent legs. Earthy and alcohol on the nose. This bottle has spent 2 days in hot trucks and warehouses so it is probably a few degrees warmer than it should be.
First taste I noticed a little tart but more bitter. A bit earthy, no distinguishable fruit flavor. Dad agreed on the bitterness, said it tasted woody and burnt, if that’s a thing. Mom said it has a thick mouth feel and definite earthiness. They both suggest a heavy, meat wine, not just for sipping. There wasn’t much change even after 20 minutes. Dad says it burns his tongue. The finish is not very long, it gives the same feeling as does grapefruit juice. Just a dry and clean feeling mouth. Chilling a bit and giving it some air may help get rid of some of the alcohol.
Just before starting to write this at midnight, I had another part of a glass that I had let sit for about 45 minutes and paired it with some steak and cheddar. There is not much difference from earlier today. I’ll try to give it another shot tomorrow and report back if there’s any change.
I have to confess, looking at the blend, none of us really like syrah. I suspect that is the source of the bitterness we tasted. I think structurally this is a good bottle. I do like the mouth feel and the tannins do not bother me. I think this is a good wine that we just don’t prefer the flavor.
@jaybird lol, from now on I’m going to read the write-up on the forums before writing my reviews. Burnt equals toasted. Warmth instead of burns. I was also tempted to say it could be cellared for a while, but that is information outside of my experience. Turns out my intuition was correct.
@jaybird Hey, sorry to hear it sounds like you didn’t like the wine very much.
We’re definitely focused on making high-acid, high-structure, broad-shouldered wines that have a much bigger interest in aging than typical for most California wines.
It’s not too surprising that you didn’t find the wine overtly fruity, it’s rare for wine that has been in barrel as long as this wine to show fresh fruit. The fruit character on our wines is going to be more in a secondary role and not with high freshness. Especially for a wine at this age.
I’m surprised to hear that you think the alcohol is too high (what we would call “hot” in the industry), but I can perhaps offer some context. I do like to clarify that while many wineries do take intentional leeway with the variance tolerated by government regulations for their labeled alcohol (tolerance is +/- 1.5% for a wine in this bracket), we do our best to label our wines as accurately as possible, so this is not a 15.9% wolf in 14.8% clothing.
The way I like to talk about the interaction of acidity/alcohol/tannin in high-structured wines is to compare them to a transmission. Each of those three components is like one gear, and all of them turn each other. If one of the gears is too far out of step with the other two, you’re going to notice it’s behaving a lot differently than the others. The transmission allegory also helps people understand how each of these components magnify each other. If you had a wine that was completely identical in every factor other than pH/acidity, the more acidic wine would be perceived as more tannic and the alcohol more pronounced. If you had one that was identical but for higher alcohol, both the acidity and the tannin would be magnified.
There are cheat codes to this metaphor–mainly residual sugar (our wines are bone dry, as it was by and large the only way to make red wine before the advent of the sterile filter) and other mouthfeel adjuncts that we don’t use (gum arabic, for example). These products kind of cheat the viscosity of the liquid and adjust the evaporative and coating potential to make the wines scan differently.
I don’t like to make assumptions, but it kind of seems like you aren’t used to wines like ours, which is common. We pursue a pretty niche style. All that said, if you don’t like or are not used to big, structure-oriented wines like ours, I would suggest that it’s a lot like IPA or hardcore punk: if you expose yourself to it a few more times, your brain will start to read past the noise and hear/feel/appreciate the signal. That said, what we do with these big wines isn’t for everyone, so no judgment if we just aren’t your speed. That’s okay too, and maybe there’s something else we make you’d appreciate.
@lucasmeeker that’s a lot of information some I understand and some a bit over my head.
A couple thoughts. I am still a self-described novice when it comes to writing reviews. Sometimes they are spot on and sometimes not. I think one of the great things about casemates is that Lab rats are from varying degrees of wine connoisseurs and fans. After I posted my review I was very pleased to see that my intuition was correct that this could lay down in the cellar for many years to come. Just wasn’t confident enough to put it in my initial review. I was also extremely aggravated at the UPS debacle. Not you guys’s fault, but I had made plans the day before when it was supposed to arrive, and then had to throw something together yesterday when it actually arrived. We were rushed, and did not allow the bottle to chill at all. Looking back, I think it had more to do with the temperature of the wine than the hotness of the alcohol. Your IPA comparison is probably spot-on. I love a good IPA, and I’m a crazy person that actually prefers to drink them slightly below room temperature rather than out of the fridge.
All that said, I did let it sit overnight, and chilled it a bit before trying it this afternoon, and it was a much more enjoyable glass. I still didn’t pick up much of the different flavors, however it did seem to come together nicely. And the alcohol was much more subdued.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my initial review, I appreciate the opportunity to learn more of the nuances of the wine you are offering.
@jaybird Absolutely my pleasure, thanks for keeping an open mind and trying (and re-trying!) new things. I’m glad to hear the second pour was more in line with what I would expect to hear. Have a good weekend.
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations.)
2018 Meeker Fossil Red Blend - $40 = 13.33%
Paging Ken, paging Ken…there he is, Ken’s Wine Guide:
Ken’s Wine Rating: Very Good+ (90.5)
Review date: July 15, 2022
300 cases produced
This dark red colored blend from Meeker opens with a black plum, Teaberry gum and mild menthol bouquet with hints of chocolate soufflé and smoked meat. On the palate, this wine is medium plus bodied with medium acidity. The mouthfeel is smooth and with a touch of heat. The flavor profile is fruit forward featuring raspberry and black cherry with notes of minerality. We also detected hints of black plum, anise, and cedar mixed in. The finish is dry and its mild tannins drift away. We would pair this wine with a juicy ribeye or with a prime rib and Yorkshire pudding with lots of gravy. Enjoy – Ken, Karen, and Stuart
@jaybird My guess is you will like it more on day 2, and would probably like it more-so on day 3; that’s sitting on the counter with no argon and no vacuvin. I haven’t had this wine in particular, but other Meekers I’ve had are made for power and age. I’m not a big lover of tannins and power clobbering me in the face, so I let my Meeker wines breathe and/or age. And then I have them with something rich, and I am greatly rewarded, because the finesse is there. If you do like to be clobbered with tannins and power, @lucasmeeker is your very good friend. Reds, that is.
I haven’t tried the Pinot Noirs in my cellar yet; that will be interesting. His Pop Punk sparklings are fantastic. Ha! I just looked, and I think he’s raised the prices on them some time in the last couple years. Makes sense. They were the best retail-price QPR in sparkling I’ve ever seen. I see they’re still selling out fast. I have a guess that he didn’t know he’d be that good at Pét-Nat. I wonder if he regrets the screw-top easy-drinking bulk bottle vibe he started with, because they’re serious quality. Maybe not the best bottle design for moving $30 sparkling through normal retail channels, or to restaurants. Though I do understand that’s exactly the right vibe for his wine club folks. That’s who Lucas loves the most. Although I happen to know, he really likes us too.
I don’t join wine clubs, because I’m a cheapskate and have to buy deep discount to maintain my habit. But I did join this one: Meeker’s, the only wine club I’ve ever been in. Stayed in as long as I could!
@WindDavid49@lucasmeeker An idea, maybe one of those Meh-crossover sale schemes: A casemates-cellars Pét-Nat wine offer bottled by . . . who knows? With a mystery label, we’d have no idea who could possibly have made that, right? Guaranteed sellout. Heavily discounted of course because whoever the winemaker is loves us so much. It would be a fantastic intro to many for the excellent winemaker; ah, too bad no one would know who that was! (Because the label wouldn’t say!)
@wardad I feel like this comment is, broadly speaking, too flattering. But thank you and also you haven’t said anything that surprises me at all.
I’m not a big lover of tannins and power clobbering me in the face
Uh oh…
so I let my Meeker wines breathe and/or age. And then I have them with something rich, and I am greatly rewarded
phew Yeah, that’s the idea.
His Pop Punk sparklings are fantastic. Ha! I just looked, and I think he’s raised the prices on them some time in the last couple years.
I love these wines. First price on first one was $28. We try and land most of them at $32 now with how expensive sparkling glass has become. Unfortunately, the dice roll with these wines is that sometimes we miss the mark and have to get them disgorged to avoid comical levels of foam-out. When we do, disgorging is expensive (my cost is literally $3+/bottle, not counting lossage). So those wines end up in the mid-$30s. If we’re working with very expensive fruit or it’s a very small lot or we had a lot of lossage, those wines rarely need to be $42.
We’re hoping to start a wine in the Pop Punk series that will be under $30, hoping for mid-20s. We will have to scale, and we might not be able to do naturally fermented sparkling, it might need to be cremant or force carb. Either way I won’t do it unless it makes me happy.
I wonder if he regrets the screw-top easy-drinking bulk bottle vibe
Not one iota, actually. The whole point of the package and the vibe is that I wanted these wines to be fun for me more than anybody else. And a big part of that is that, while I hold myself to a very high standard making age-worthy reds, sparkling is not my forte and I’m still learning it. I wanted something that communicated that the nature of Pet Nat and the nature of my sparkling wines is going to be ephemeral, un-perfect, but hopefully charming as hell. The DIY ethos of punk is a perfect allegory.
Thank you WCC and Meeker for the opportunity to rat.
Wine arrived at a toasty 98.2F after traveling around a brown truck for 10 hours at 110F. We’re in the middle of heat warnings. Into the cellar to cool off.
Let the wine breathe in the bottle for approx an hour. Tasted at cellar temp of 55F. Dark burgundy in the glass. Cherries and vanilla on the nose. Same cherries and oak on the palate with other dark fruits and medium acidity. Not getting much more as the alcohol is distracting from subtleties. Long dry finish. Next tasted with spicy veggie bhajias and other spicy snacks. The spice tames the heat and pairs nicely with the wine. The fruits become a little more subtle and I’m getting a few minty notes.
This needs time as the wine is tight and the structure can hold its own. I’ll try another glass this evening and will check in.
No shipping to New York???!!! So sorry , tried to place an order and no luck. As an aside, I received a 2001 bottle of Four Kings in a mystery box a year or two ago. I have read the entire thread so I think we are still in the drinking window, but wondering what you thoughts are. Thanks for the participation, and I am sorry to miss out on this offer.
2018 Meeker Fossil Red Blend
Tasting Notes
Specs
What’s Included
4-bottles:
Case:
Price Comparison
$696.00/Case for 4x 2018 Meeker Fossil Red Blend at The Meeker Vineyard
About The Winery
Available States
AZ, CA, CO, DC, FL, ID, IL, IN, IA, LA, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, NC, ND, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, WY
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Jul 21 - Tuesday, Jul 22
2018 Meeker Fossil Red Blend
4 bottles for $99.99 $25/bottle + $2/bottle shipping
Case of 12 for $259.99 $21.67/bottle + $1/bottle shipping
I made this.
@lucasmeeker …with, like, a whole team of people that deserve most of the credit, to be clear.
@lucasmeeker
h/t your '13 Four Kings is doing just fine; got a bottle open in the fridge now…
How much longer might I expect it to go, well cellared?
@rjquillin My general framework of suggestion is that we are very comfortable saying that our Cabs and Cab-related blends will go 25+ from bottling, so roughly 28+ from vintage year.
The truth is that most of our 80s Cabs drink beautifully, and the vast majority of the 90s Cabs are still in good to great shape.
I don’t have time to give you the 18,000 word explanation about how I’ve tweaked some of our thinking and protocol since I took over the winemaking, but the short version is:
We’ve adjusted how we think about acidity to frame more around pH than TA, and then we’ve concreted new ideas about what we’re looking for. The result is that our wines should age more consistently, but perhaps not quite as long as our longest aging vintages of the past. Still a bit too early to know.
The 2013 vintage was before I started making some of those adjustments, and though I haven’t tasted it lately I’d say you have at least another decade, maybe two.
I would also add that I really appreciate our Cabs most in the 7-10 year (from vintage) and 18-23 year (from vintage) windows. But, we intentionally tell people that the whole point of our style is to build a wine that will progress and evolve for a long time, and where in that curve your preferences and interests are is something I can’t predict.
Personally, I like big wines when they’re too young (like dumb teenagers with gas money) and when they’re about to start feeling old (like a jaded, middle-aged winemaker coming to terms with his 40th birthday… tomorrow). I like fresh and medium-bodied wines when they’re hyper fresh or past the fresh window and have awkward giraffe vibes. But I grew up in a winery so my cellar palate and weird preferences are chaos.
Good to hear from you. Enjoy!
@lucasmeeker Happy Birthday!
@lucasmeeker
As always, thank you for your active participation here and for your dedication to making such wonderful wines. I hope you have an amazing 40th birthday!
@kawichris650 Thanks!
@davirom Thank you!
Many thanks again for the opportunity to serve as a rat. This time almost didn’t happen thanks to UPS, but that’s a whole story that we are all too familiar with and I won’t go into it. Other than to say it was finally delivered to the UPS store 30 minutes before they closed today, and I made it to pick up with about a minute to spare.
The bottle did not have any time to rest so we just went after it. The pop and pour reveals a dark, opaque garnet colored wine with decent legs. Earthy and alcohol on the nose. This bottle has spent 2 days in hot trucks and warehouses so it is probably a few degrees warmer than it should be.
First taste I noticed a little tart but more bitter. A bit earthy, no distinguishable fruit flavor. Dad agreed on the bitterness, said it tasted woody and burnt, if that’s a thing. Mom said it has a thick mouth feel and definite earthiness. They both suggest a heavy, meat wine, not just for sipping. There wasn’t much change even after 20 minutes. Dad says it burns his tongue. The finish is not very long, it gives the same feeling as does grapefruit juice. Just a dry and clean feeling mouth. Chilling a bit and giving it some air may help get rid of some of the alcohol.
Just before starting to write this at midnight, I had another part of a glass that I had let sit for about 45 minutes and paired it with some steak and cheddar. There is not much difference from earlier today. I’ll try to give it another shot tomorrow and report back if there’s any change.
I have to confess, looking at the blend, none of us really like syrah. I suspect that is the source of the bitterness we tasted. I think structurally this is a good bottle. I do like the mouth feel and the tannins do not bother me. I think this is a good wine that we just don’t prefer the flavor.
@jaybird lol, from now on I’m going to read the write-up on the forums before writing my reviews. Burnt equals toasted. Warmth instead of burns. I was also tempted to say it could be cellared for a while, but that is information outside of my experience. Turns out my intuition was correct.
@jaybird Hey, sorry to hear it sounds like you didn’t like the wine very much.
We’re definitely focused on making high-acid, high-structure, broad-shouldered wines that have a much bigger interest in aging than typical for most California wines.
It’s not too surprising that you didn’t find the wine overtly fruity, it’s rare for wine that has been in barrel as long as this wine to show fresh fruit. The fruit character on our wines is going to be more in a secondary role and not with high freshness. Especially for a wine at this age.
I’m surprised to hear that you think the alcohol is too high (what we would call “hot” in the industry), but I can perhaps offer some context. I do like to clarify that while many wineries do take intentional leeway with the variance tolerated by government regulations for their labeled alcohol (tolerance is +/- 1.5% for a wine in this bracket), we do our best to label our wines as accurately as possible, so this is not a 15.9% wolf in 14.8% clothing.
The way I like to talk about the interaction of acidity/alcohol/tannin in high-structured wines is to compare them to a transmission. Each of those three components is like one gear, and all of them turn each other. If one of the gears is too far out of step with the other two, you’re going to notice it’s behaving a lot differently than the others. The transmission allegory also helps people understand how each of these components magnify each other. If you had a wine that was completely identical in every factor other than pH/acidity, the more acidic wine would be perceived as more tannic and the alcohol more pronounced. If you had one that was identical but for higher alcohol, both the acidity and the tannin would be magnified.
There are cheat codes to this metaphor–mainly residual sugar (our wines are bone dry, as it was by and large the only way to make red wine before the advent of the sterile filter) and other mouthfeel adjuncts that we don’t use (gum arabic, for example). These products kind of cheat the viscosity of the liquid and adjust the evaporative and coating potential to make the wines scan differently.
I don’t like to make assumptions, but it kind of seems like you aren’t used to wines like ours, which is common. We pursue a pretty niche style. All that said, if you don’t like or are not used to big, structure-oriented wines like ours, I would suggest that it’s a lot like IPA or hardcore punk: if you expose yourself to it a few more times, your brain will start to read past the noise and hear/feel/appreciate the signal. That said, what we do with these big wines isn’t for everyone, so no judgment if we just aren’t your speed. That’s okay too, and maybe there’s something else we make you’d appreciate.
@lucasmeeker that’s a lot of information
some I understand and some a bit over my head.
A couple thoughts. I am still a self-described novice when it comes to writing reviews. Sometimes they are spot on and sometimes not. I think one of the great things about casemates is that Lab rats are from varying degrees of wine connoisseurs and fans. After I posted my review I was very pleased to see that my intuition was correct that this could lay down in the cellar for many years to come. Just wasn’t confident enough to put it in my initial review. I was also extremely aggravated at the UPS debacle. Not you guys’s fault, but I had made plans the day before when it was supposed to arrive, and then had to throw something together yesterday when it actually arrived. We were rushed, and did not allow the bottle to chill at all. Looking back, I think it had more to do with the temperature of the wine than the hotness of the alcohol. Your IPA comparison is probably spot-on. I love a good IPA, and I’m a crazy person that actually prefers to drink them slightly below room temperature rather than out of the fridge.
All that said, I did let it sit overnight, and chilled it a bit before trying it this afternoon, and it was a much more enjoyable glass. I still didn’t pick up much of the different flavors, however it did seem to come together nicely. And the alcohol was much more subdued.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my initial review, I appreciate the opportunity to learn more of the nuances of the wine you are offering.
@jaybird Absolutely my pleasure, thanks for keeping an open mind and trying (and re-trying!) new things. I’m glad to hear the second pour was more in line with what I would expect to hear. Have a good weekend.
How much more are you saving by buying a full case?
(Note: tax and shipping are not included in savings calculations.)
2018 Meeker Fossil Red Blend - $40 = 13.33%
Paging Ken, paging Ken…there he is, Ken’s Wine Guide:
Ken’s Wine Rating: Very Good+ (90.5)
Review date: July 15, 2022
300 cases produced
This dark red colored blend from Meeker opens with a black plum, Teaberry gum and mild menthol bouquet with hints of chocolate soufflé and smoked meat. On the palate, this wine is medium plus bodied with medium acidity. The mouthfeel is smooth and with a touch of heat. The flavor profile is fruit forward featuring raspberry and black cherry with notes of minerality. We also detected hints of black plum, anise, and cedar mixed in. The finish is dry and its mild tannins drift away. We would pair this wine with a juicy ribeye or with a prime rib and Yorkshire pudding with lots of gravy. Enjoy – Ken, Karen, and Stuart
fwiw
@jaybird My guess is you will like it more on day 2, and would probably like it more-so on day 3; that’s sitting on the counter with no argon and no vacuvin. I haven’t had this wine in particular, but other Meekers I’ve had are made for power and age. I’m not a big lover of tannins and power clobbering me in the face, so I let my Meeker wines breathe and/or age. And then I have them with something rich, and I am greatly rewarded, because the finesse is there. If you do like to be clobbered with tannins and power, @lucasmeeker is your very good friend. Reds, that is.
I haven’t tried the Pinot Noirs in my cellar yet; that will be interesting. His Pop Punk sparklings are fantastic. Ha! I just looked, and I think he’s raised the prices on them some time in the last couple years. Makes sense. They were the best retail-price QPR in sparkling I’ve ever seen. I see they’re still selling out fast. I have a guess that he didn’t know he’d be that good at Pét-Nat. I wonder if he regrets the screw-top easy-drinking bulk bottle vibe he started with, because they’re serious quality. Maybe not the best bottle design for moving $30 sparkling through normal retail channels, or to restaurants. Though I do understand that’s exactly the right vibe for his wine club folks. That’s who Lucas loves the most. Although I happen to know, he really likes us too.
I don’t join wine clubs, because I’m a cheapskate and have to buy deep discount to maintain my habit. But I did join this one: Meeker’s, the only wine club I’ve ever been in. Stayed in as long as I could!
@WindDavid49 @lucasmeeker An idea, maybe one of those Meh-crossover sale schemes: A casemates-cellars Pét-Nat wine offer bottled by . . . who knows? With a mystery label, we’d have no idea who could possibly have made that, right? Guaranteed sellout. Heavily discounted of course because whoever the winemaker is loves us so much. It would be a fantastic intro to many for the excellent winemaker; ah, too bad no one would know who that was! (Because the label wouldn’t say!)
@wardad I feel like this comment is, broadly speaking, too flattering. But thank you and also you haven’t said anything that surprises me at all.
Uh oh…
phew Yeah, that’s the idea.
I love these wines. First price on first one was $28. We try and land most of them at $32 now with how expensive sparkling glass has become. Unfortunately, the dice roll with these wines is that sometimes we miss the mark and have to get them disgorged to avoid comical levels of foam-out. When we do, disgorging is expensive (my cost is literally $3+/bottle, not counting lossage). So those wines end up in the mid-$30s. If we’re working with very expensive fruit or it’s a very small lot or we had a lot of lossage, those wines rarely need to be $42.
We’re hoping to start a wine in the Pop Punk series that will be under $30, hoping for mid-20s. We will have to scale, and we might not be able to do naturally fermented sparkling, it might need to be cremant or force carb. Either way I won’t do it unless it makes me happy.
Not one iota, actually. The whole point of the package and the vibe is that I wanted these wines to be fun for me more than anybody else. And a big part of that is that, while I hold myself to a very high standard making age-worthy reds, sparkling is not my forte and I’m still learning it. I wanted something that communicated that the nature of Pet Nat and the nature of my sparkling wines is going to be ephemeral, un-perfect, but hopefully charming as hell. The DIY ethos of punk is a perfect allegory.
Wine arrived at a toasty 98.2F after traveling around a brown truck for 10 hours at 110F. We’re in the middle of heat warnings. Into the cellar to cool off.
Let the wine breathe in the bottle for approx an hour. Tasted at cellar temp of 55F. Dark burgundy in the glass. Cherries and vanilla on the nose. Same cherries and oak on the palate with other dark fruits and medium acidity. Not getting much more as the alcohol is distracting from subtleties. Long dry finish. Next tasted with spicy veggie bhajias and other spicy snacks. The spice tames the heat and pairs nicely with the wine. The fruits become a little more subtle and I’m getting a few minty notes.
This needs time as the wine is tight and the structure can hold its own. I’ll try another glass this evening and will check in.
@chefjess Yikes. That’s warm. Makes me wonder if that had something to do with the other rat report sounding a bit like a description of cooked wine.
Give it a shot tomorrow and if you have a vacuvin, day three should be a pretty ripping good time.
No shipping to New York???!!! So sorry , tried to place an order and no luck. As an aside, I received a 2001 bottle of Four Kings in a mystery box a year or two ago. I have read the entire thread so I think we are still in the drinking window, but wondering what you thoughts are. Thanks for the participation, and I am sorry to miss out on this offer.
@gillisr @lucasmeeker
Perhaps a polite request and there may be an alternate shipping option…