The Wellesley Wine Press: Wine Access Radio Silence: Wine from $500+/btl Oakville Grapes for $45/btl

Accolades

I was quoted in The Boston Globe about legislation that would permit winery direct sales to Massachusetts:

“This is good news for Massachusetts wine enthusiasts, who will now be able to purchase wines they currently don’t have access to,” said Robert Dwyer of Wellesley, who blogs about wine. “This is also good news for Massachusetts in general since it will mean new revenues.”

I wrote this article in WellesleyWeston Magazine featuring local food & wine experts like Chef Ming Tsai, Mike O'Connell Jr., Chris Minervino, and Austin Moran. Check it out!

I shared my thoughts on the direct shipment of wine to Massachusetts with CBS Boston during hearings at the State House.

This site was listed as one of the Top 100 Wine Blogs:

https://alawine.com/wine-blog-rankings.html

Our Scoop the Spectator contest was mentioned on Palate Press:

"Bob Dwyer, a Massachusetts-based wine blogger, has created the coolest parlor game in wine, and for once it’s a wine contest that does not involve blind tasting.

I used to think the entire concept of a Top 100 list was silly. This year, mine was the first guess on Dwyer’s site."

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reached out for a quote on the expansion of the number of licenses each retailer in MA can hold:

"Robert P. Dwyer of Wellesley, who blogs about wine at thewww.wellesleywinepress.com, calls the state’s liquor laws bizarre and favors a wider availability of wine. For consumers, it would be more convenient to be able to buy wine at a supermarket while shopping for food, he said."

“You have this strange exclusion of wine, which in Europe is considered a grocery item,” said Mr. Dwyer. “Here it’s considered the demon rum.”

Wine Spectator picked up on our 2011 Scoop the Spectator contest with these remarks:

"trying to predict the annual Wine of the Year is a popular parlor game among enophiles. This year, blogger Wellesley Wine Press held a contest, with New York wine retailer Grapes the Wine Co. awarding a prize of a Kindle Fire e-reader to the first commenter to correctly guess this year's top wine before it was announced. Unfiltered was impressed with the number of Top 10 wines prognosticated by Wellesley's readers. "Senelwine" guessed Château de St.-Cosme Gigondas 2009, our No. 10 wine, "Mike M" guessed Quinta do Vallado Touriga Nacional Douro 2008, our No. 7 wine, "James Z" guessed Baer Ursa Columbia Valley 2008, our No. 6 wine, and "RichardPF" nailed it, winning the Kindle, and the respect of his wine-loving peers. Looks like Wellesley's readers know their wine."

Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ-TV stopped by to discuss why wineries still can't ship wine directly to MA consumers more than a year after courts ruled they should be able to.

WBUR, Boston's NPR news station, did an audio interview with me for a piece discussing MA Question 1: Repealing the Alcohol Sales Tax.

The Chicago Tribune's Bill Daley mentioned the site in Rosé: A wine for more seasons. I said "For me, they're like pumpkin spice coffee drinks: best enjoyed early in the season". Bill alsogave the site a shout-out for a piece the Capitol Case Clubcontributed about restaurant wine service. I thought it was a great example of how print wine writers can effectively engage wine bloggers.

The nice folks at Foodista, The Cooking Encyclopedia Everyone Can Edit, named this site Wine Blog of the Day for this entry featuring GoBYO. Thanks!

Budget Bacchus named this site Wine Blog of the Week. Check 'em out!

Boston University wine educator Stacy Woods mentioned this site alongside wine blogging powerhouses Vinography and Fermentation. Wow- that's great company to be in! Thanks- I appreciate it.

WBZ-TV, the Boston CBS affiliate, interviewed me aboutMassachusetts wine shipping laws. It was kind of surreal having a camera crew in our kitchen but we enjoyed it! Check it out:

Wine Enthusiast Magazine called me a "wine accessory guru". Thanks! I appreciate it.

NPR's Public Radio Kitchen linked to my pieces on "Syrah: The Steroids of the Pinot Noir World" and "Watching the Wine Community Rumble". Thanks for that! I am humbled, and I feel just a little bit like the Car Talk guys do when they say "And even though Roger Clemens stabs his radio with a syringe whenever he hears us say it, this is NPR: National Public Radio."

The Boston Globe's website has been linking to my recent entries as part of their expanded local coverage includingWellesley. I truly appreciate that as it has driven a lot of local traffic to this site.

It was really nice of Thomas Matthews, Executive Editor of Wine Spectator to leave a comment and then check back and answer some questions I had. Awesome guy! Check it out here. And here.

Thanks to The Boston Globe for including The Wellesley Wine Press in their list of local blogs in the Food & Drink section. Check it out here.

The Wellesley Wine Press was just added tohttps://wine.alltop.com. Alltop is an interesting topical take on sorting through the best sites on the Internet- check it out and see which sites are listed for topics you're most interested in.

Wine Access is offering another one of their "NDA wines" today:

2018 Radio Silence Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Pricing

$45 1-5 bottles
$42 6-11 bottles
$38 12 + bottles

Their current 20% off sale doesn't apply to this wine since it is a Limited Time Offer, but if you're a FoundersCard member you can get 10% off.

Depending on whether you've depleted them already you might also be able to use:

wineaccesscom/enjoy30 for $30 off $100
wineaccess.com/newsite for $50 off $200
wineaccess.com/enjoy20 for 20% off

If you're new to Wine Access $50 off $150 through referral:

http://share.wineaccess.com/v/robert_221

Shop through a portal if it's your first order.

Unfortunately, Wine Access offers tend not to stack. It seems like their system tries to apply the best available promotion tied to an account (clicking through each link should tie them to the Wine Access account you subsequently log into).

Free shipping on $120 orders.

Don't forget the ongoing Amex Offer.

Thoughts

This one sounds similar to the 2018 Yesterday Napa Valley they offered a little while back. Not to be confused with Yesterday Howell Mountain, the clues they provided for the Yesterday Napa Valley seemed to me to indicate Harlan as the grape source. And it's the case again for the Radio Silence.

Clues

"At retail, you’d pay between $500-$1,500 (per bottle)"
"hillside Oakville grapes"

The offer is written through the lens of a chat with "our octogenarian friend." I did some checking and it looks like Bill Harlan turned 80 this year.

WWP Ratings on Recent Wine Access NDA Wines

Don't get to cranked up about the numbers here. I'm just trying to express my perception of the quality of these recent NDA offers relative to one another.

Commission: 89/100 (read more)

Editorial: 90/100

Yesterday Napa Valley: 93/100

Yesterady Howell Mountain: 95/100 (read more)

Bottom Line

Although the Commission wine was a bit of a disappointment after a couple of smash hits with the Yesterday wines, I'm cautiously optimistic about this bottling. Here's hoping it drinks more like Yesterday than Commission.

Although this is classified as a preorder wine, it's scheduled to arrive Dec 3rd.

I'll look forward to comparing notes...

Baseline Quality
Baseline Price
Quality (50-100)
Price ($)
wwpQPR
Value:

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