I had put down on my list to buy another bottle of du Pape, but DH said let's try the VRAC and compare. We both found so little difference that we didn't even bother to blind taste test.
Dee
Sounds like a great operation! If you get what seems the same for $8 US as what used to cost $20, you're way ahead.
What is "Vrac?" Some kind of negociant?
In France "vrac" just means "bulk" (more or less, or "loose" I suppose, never looked it up). When you buy wine "en vrac" you bring your jug or barrel to a sort of gas pump, and fill it up. Great way to buy sometimes, we have even bottled ourselves on occasion although I'm not sure I'd go to the trouble now.
I didn't see anything useful on the labels, but I must say I find calling a wine "vrac" (and then charging 8 bucks for it) very bizarre!
-E
Yes, I believe on the back of the VRAC bottle, it did say, it meant bulk wine.
What I find more bizarre is that it tasted as good as the du Pape that I paid $20 for. I just can't understand that. If it were just me, I'd chalk it up to 'my taster," but DH felt the same way. Perhaps the du Pape wasn't as good as it should have been. Dee
Dee, if you've got a taster that's happy with "cheap", as far as I'm concerned you're ahead of the game. The bottom line is to drink what you like; if you can do it on the cheap, more power to you!
Negoc wines can vary vastly even in the same year. Like when 2 buck chuck came out, some reviewer liked it, then reviled it later. Really it was because it wasn't the same wine.
Sometimes, for one reason or another, a negoc may get hold of an amount of CdP that's really pretty good (or they may be able to blend successfully). Enjoy it while it lasts, (and perhaps lay some in if you really like), because it may very well be swill 6 months from now...
-E
Dee, There's plenty of swill that comes from Chateauneuf-du-Pape, just as there is from any other area. Likewise, there's plenty of great wine made in areas that aren't entitled to any name other than "Cotes du Rhone." In this case, Dom. de Nalys actually has a decent reputation, but you have to wonder why they decided to sell it to Costco in the first place. For Costco to market it at $20, they probably can't pay Nalys any more than $10 per bottle, which is probably 50% less than they'd get selling it under their own name (their '04 is selling for $25-30 retail). In fact, their '05 white is being sold under their name, which makes me wonder again about the decision to sell it to Costco. I suspect that they weren't happy with what they had on their hands and chose to "declassify" the wine by selling it to Costco for marketing under their own name. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that Nalys agreed to have their name appear on the wine! ;-)
Mark Lipton
Good post reply. I enjoyed reading it a lot. Dee Dee
Too right. Or sometimes vin de pays can be a revelation... especially considering the what the AOC strictures force on the growers.
I was told by a CdR producer on this last trip that they are not yet able to bottle a certain 2006 villages wine, because the syndicat is requiring more time so that less successful growers can move the 05. So my guy can't sell his 06 villages, but he's got no 05 villages left to sell. Basically he's being told he can't sell his product. The "solution" is to bottle some now as Vin de Pays; this he can sell at a somewhat lesser price, but at least keep the bills paid. The rest, _the exact same wine_, will be bottled later as more expensive CdR villages.
This could be. But big quantity discounts are pretty high, and a lot of the CdP folks are desperate to get into the US market. They may not know much about Costco anyway, but I'd guess they're hoping to leverage some name recognition later on. There are a boat load of CdP producers, as you know.
Chateauneuf has become a lot like the Bordelais, there is really an "us and them" culture. Those who have successfully entered the foreign markets are doing really well, everybody else is just scraping along.
-E
Yup. One of my favorite VdPs is VdP des Collines Rhodanniennes, which produces some really lovely QPR Syrah (and, increasingly, Viognier) from the benchlands above Cote Rotie/Condrieu. It seems to serve a purpose much like Vino di Tavola served in Italy for all those producers who want to break with AOC/DOC regulations. In this case, it seems to mostly embrace those producers who find good terroir lying outside of established AOC boundaries.
Ridiculous, but hardly a surprise.
Well, the weird thing here is that they already had/have an importer, so the decision to go with Costco couldn't just be to break into the US market, nor would it seem very plausible that Costco was paying them more than their other importer.
Mark Lipton
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