Young Winos
The Winos’ Tasting Series: revisiting the nascent négociant
By Jesse on September 30, 2008
The Winos remain rabid devotees to the pursuit and discovery of quality bottles at approachable price-points. That’s why we were pleased as punch to recently receive another case of wines from the good people at Cameron Hughes. On a recent Friday, several Winos wound their way up the precipitous slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains to indulge in the lineup at Erik’s legendary hideout in the hills.
As we learned when we tasted a few of the eponymous producer’s offerings back in April, Cameron Hughes is helping to redefine the notion of a négociant (a French term referring to a wine broker/blender) for a new generation of savvy drinkers. Instead of concentrating on achieving quantity within one region, though, his company sources small lots of high-quality juice from top-tier producers around the globe and bottles them in anonymous packaging, save for a “lot number.” The other edge of the Cameron Hughes sword, however, is that when a certain “lot” of wine is gone, it’s gone — naturally, then, the Winos approached this particular evening’s drinking with a heightened sense of urgency.
This tasting re-affirmed the conclusion we drew last time we tasted Cameron Hughes: the wines are typically very solid values, some of which we find we like more or less than others. As in the case of the Lot 71 Cab, though, the label sometimes manages to exceed all of our expectations in terms of delivering outstanding wine at a very impressive price. We definitely look forward to the next lineup.
The tasting over, several Winos donned bathing suits and took a midnight dip in the pool. That proving a bit chillier of an experience than might be considered pleasant, Erik’s grotto-like bathtub beckoned to a small few of us who didn’t mind the tight quarters and quasi-homoerotic undertones. Photos were taken of that portion of the evening, but these will not be appearing on this website, nor hopefully any other.