Now, you can't blame a winery for wanting to maximise their sales without generating a whole lot of extra marketing effort, so it's probably no surprise that there's now a C3 option, with a third dozen being shipped mid-year between the previous dozens in April and October.
The problem kicks in when you realise the old two shipment option took you through the winery's whole range, and now withe three shipments per year there are a couple of wines you're likely to miss trying. The Gamay is a vital component in Hughesy's summer drinking plans and I didn't mind the Chardonnay Marsanne either, so the fact that I haven't had a chance to try the current vintage of either is a problem.
Do I take them on trust and order a mixed dozen on spec? And what about The Carson Gewurztraminer? Goes down well with spicy Asian, so how many do I throw into the mix?
The easiest option would probably be to upgrade from C2 to C3 and maybe order a further dozen or two in November based on what we liked and based around a number of bottles of Gamay....
But that raises a separate issue, given the fact that there's a finite number of cases we can order in a calendar year, and an ever-growing list of wineries I'd like to order from.
At the moment we're likely to be getting shipments from The Wine Society, Tahbilk, Brook Eden, Jim Barry, Kirrihill, Rockford, Brown Brothers, Baileys, Grosset, Paulett, Mitchell and Dal Zotto, and I'd like to throw Olssens, Crabtree, Pikes and Sam Miranda into the mix as well.
That's sixteen separate sources for a maximum of forty dozen, which is where the need for rationalisation kicks in.
Which also explains the regular question regarding reordering that the reader will find throughout these pages.
Those considerations are going to come to the fore as we work our way through the contents of the October '09 pack, which consists of:
2004 Riesling
2005 Merlot
2006 Cabernet Sauvignon
2006 Shiraz
2007 Chardonnay (2 bottles)
2008 Riesling
2009 The Carson Gewurztraminer (2 bottles)
2009 Ensemble Rose
2009 Seriously Pink
Rutherglen Muscat
That's a pretty standard example of what arrives in these packs. A couple of older bottles, along with a smattering of others that represent a fair chunk of the winery's range.
Given summer drinking imperatives I headed more or less straight for The Carson Gewurztraminer and the Ensemble Rose, and, predictably, liked what I found.
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