What's up with the proprietary wines sold on some of these sites?
1I’ve seen a few wines sold that are branded for the actual site itself. Some of these being wines that are intentionally branded after the site (woot and meh wines) and some that are branded by a 3rd party but only exclusively sold on the deal-a-site. What is the deal with these wines for someone who knows nothing about them? Are they relabeled? Actual blends the company makes? Or discount wine that is bought and branded? What is the common quality of the wines? Are they hit or miss as far as what you get? Is this like costo branded stuff where you just need to figure out who the original distributor is?
Can anyone help with the understanding of these wines. Up until now I have been passing on them. Wondering if that is a mistake or they truly are just gag gift branded wines.
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“Is this like costo branded stuff where you just need to figure out who the original distributor is?”
That one.
Not first hand at this but here’s my understanding and it includes several of your scenarios:
the coolest scenario / fully proprietary: Sometimes you come across smaller batches of juice that are high quality but won’t make a large production run. These could change hands at the winery level. Often these are best blended to achieve a high-quality low-production run that can be branded uniquely. A winery needs to still be the originator of this blend, even if the entire production run is labeled with a licensed brand.
the known quality / split label: a known wine that may still be being bottled or have had some left as shiners that can be labeled with a licensed brand. The winery with the main brand using this wine is usually still the one in play.
harder to overachieve / intended unbranded wine: larger production runs of wine that are all bottled as shiners; left for later labeling. Wine could still be good but it’s not boutique and not proprietary.
@snapster by not first hand I should clarify, I’ve been the brand and @winedavid49 has been the curator who was first hand.
@snapster Wait. What about the 2013 Woot Cellars Revelry that was a full custom blend by wooters?
@rjquillin I escaped in 2012 so I’m not familiar with sourcing details on that one. It sounds like you’re saying it’s fully proprietary, which is the coolest.
@snapster Yup! Blended up during the 2014 rpm tour at Peter Wellington’s digs. Same material that went into his Victory blend.
@snapster actually, it sounds more in the negociant arena… source the juice and custom blend…
@jasisk The word “negociant” is rather nondescript. A negoicant may buy grapes, must, or wine in the barrel or bottle (in the latter case the negociant merely provides the label).
All of the above is correct. There are also other deal-a-day (or hour) sites that contract with wineries to produce a custom blend that may be of high quality or of low quality compared to the parent label. Woot Cellars has been all of the above, best we can tell:
2007 Boss Monster was almost certainly Pedroncelli Mother Clone
2013 Revelry was a custom blend of the Wellington Victory components
2009 D’Ontspille Le Black was a random lot that Peter Wellington came across (iirc) and made specifically for woot
2009 Toothstejn Cab Franc was as well hidden as could be
2015 Under The Mistletoe looks a whole lot like the Pedroncelli Sonoma Classico
and so on…
I also was fortunate enough to acquire a few bottles of privately labelled 2004 Mandolina Toccata Riserva that a guy I know purchased in barrel quantity. You just have to do your homework to figure it out and assess both the value and match of the wine.