huevos con vino

I became a member of my first wine club recently.  I joined the DDO Direct club, which is the 500-person (limited, don’t you know) direct mailing club for Domaine Drouhin.  As I’ve posted here before, Domaine Drouhin is my reigning favorite winery.  Apparently, their Web site is due for an overhaul and re-release on March 1st, so we’ll see what it looks like with a fresh coat of paint, so to speak.

Anyway, for their 2003 vintage Domaine Drouhin bottled about 8,900 cases of their Pinot Noir Classique (now known as the Willamette Valley Pinot Noir).  I received my 3 bottles on Tuesday; with shipping, they cost $40 each, which is the standard winery price for that wine.  Not a bargain, but that’s fine with me since being a DDO Direct member means I’ll receive 3 bottles of the Louise release in May.  Hot damn!

The Domaine Drouhin Louise release is incredibly limited…it is, in fact, limited only to DDO Direct members.  So there are 500 lucky bastards running around out there, me included, who get an allocation of Louise each year.  I can’t wait to taste this wine: The Classique is terrific, the Laurène is significantly better, so the Louise should be really outstanding.

Now, I think there is a bit of a rivalry between Archery Summit and Domaine Drouhin.  Even though these two wineries are neighbors, and they do share a lot of events and whatnot, I think Archery Summit tries to one-up Domaine Drouhin in a few areas.  Here are a couple of examples:

• Domaine Drouhin tastings cost $10, I believe; Archery Summit charges $20
• Domaine Drouhin has 3 Pinot Noir releases each year: Willamette Valley ($40 list), Laurène ($60 list) and Louise (unavailable to the public); Archery Summit currently has their Premier Cuvée ($37 list), their Red Hills Estate and Arcus Estate ($75 each), and their Estate ($150 list)
• Domaine Drouhin has a four-tiered gravity flow system that allows the juice to seep naturally out of the skins; Archery Summit has, I believe, a five-tiered gravity flow system
• Domaine Drouhin has a great view; Archery Summit has caves carved from the living volcanic rock

I see a bit of a friendly rivalry in these observations, but maybe that’s just me.  I do think Domaine Drouhin is smart not to offer their Louise for sale.  Any winery can sell their wines at exorbitant prices, such as the $150 asking price for Archery Summit Estate Pinot Noir (yes, it’s great, but $150?).  But it takes a special winery to produce a wine that you can’t even buy!  Now that’s exclusive.  I’m happy to be in the club…my snobbery grows larger by the day.  *)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 at 1:48 pm and is filed under commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.