I am in Bordeaux right now at VinExpo and am not sure as to the answer to your question. I am fairly certain our distribution is about to expand there. Can you hit http://www.chwine.com and send an email to our staff and we will figure it out when I return….I believe both stores will be receiving our product soon, probably the Lot 35 Cab.

Cheers!

Cameron

I never miss a new lot and have found some great bottles from CH. Lots 25 & 30 (both Carneros region wines) hit grand slam home runs around here. We tasted L30 against a bottle of Rombauer and six folks around the table gave the CH the thumbs up. (And this is from the top selling market for Rombauer). L25 reminds me of a BV Sparkling Carneros that I last had over 10 years ago that we fell in love with.

I am sitting on >75 bottles of CH wines in storage and will continue to add to the collection.

Keep it up Cameron!

Sorry amigo but that was a one time deal. hit our website and you can read the story behind it. It was actually a discontinued single vineyard designate program sacrificed by the bean counters.

We do report to our mailing list when we have a wine that comes back around.

I think you would probably like Lot 31, which is a Sonoma Mtn Syrah we will release probably next week. Its a bit more extracted than the Lot 24 and just generally “bigger” and has an american oak influence versus the more subtle french oak you got in Lot 24.

Cheers!

Cameron

No worries. If you want to know if we have any wine in your local Costco just fire me an email at cameron.hughes@chwine.com. Its hit or miss so make sure to hit me before so you don’t waste your time.

Cheers!

Cameron

Thanks for clarifying, Craig and Cameron, about the sales tactics in the Costco stores. I still would like to witness it first-hand since it sounds like a Moroccan bazaar relocated to well-heeled parts of California–and perhaps beyond. Apologies for not recognizing the “beyond” part of the Costco relationship in the original posting. Clearly the wines are available in many key states (though sadly not my native New York). I adjusted the text above to reflect this.

And thanks, Cameron, for the elaboration on the differences with a typical private label from typical grocery store. Very helpful.

Congratulations on your rapid success and thanks for the 50% off shipping to my readers!

-Tyler

Yes, its similar to some extent. There is probably some sort of agency behind the Whole Foods private label wines (yes they do their own private label wines) like Winery Exchange (http://www.wineryexchange.com/cgi-bin/wineryexchange/home.jsp)
They buy bulk wines and bottle them under various labels and they source globally as well. The key difference is that I source under my own label, I only buy high-end juice, I have virually no overhead, and I sell direct to Costco or consumer (Costco works on a 12-14% margins versus 33-40+% for most big retail grocery chains) which allows me to chop about 50-75% off what you would pay for the same juice under other labels. We recently sold a Napa Cab with a $42 price tag and a 92 score from a respected national publication on it for $13.99 in Costco.

As for naming the producers, it’ll never happen. My ability to continue doing this would be significantly diminished if I named my sources as it erodes their price points.

Cameron

I just had a clarification question, so is this similar to “private labels” in retail locations? For example, I can go to Whole Foods and they have their “Organic 365″ line that includes all kinds of foods that I’m pretty sure they did not manufacture themselves.

In either case it’s a very interesting idea, and it’s cool that you’ve been successful at it. I think exposing people to different kinds of wines is always good, and if someone can pick up something cheaply, they’re more likely to take a chance on it, although it’s a shame that you don’t reveal the original producers, since I’m sure some customers would be intrigued enough to try the “real deal”.

Thanks

-Ben

First if all thanks for taking the time to check us out and cover our business.

Secondly, a couple clarifications if I may. We are now selling in Costco’s in CA, AZ, TX, FL, NC, SC, AL, and IL and will soon be adding GA, VA, WA, OR, MI, MN, and hopefully, MA. The wines go in and out quickly so unless folks are on our mailing list at http://www.chwine.com they’ll never know (there are over $12,000 people that have signed themselves up on the list so we must be doing something right).

Also, the Marlborough SB is $11/bottle (though if you add shipping to NY it would be about $13 so fair enough). In CA Costco’s its $9 and, I think, a steal. If your customers want to try anything off our website they can use the coupon code “oscar” to get 50% off the shipping (enter the code on the left when you land on the store page).

Otherwise, spot on brother!

Cheers,

Cameron

I’m confused. I hire aggressive salepeople to promote my wines just like everyone else in this business and you call it “time share tactics”? Maybe you don’t realize this but we can’t sample wine in Costco’s so we need people who are not wallflowers to communicate how we do what we do. I can’t for the life of me see the problem with that.

As for the comment “My Belief is that wine should sell itself”, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you mean a wine should sell itself when it is tasted. I would agree with that.

If, however, you believe a wine should sell itself off the shelf and not be promoted or communicated in any way, then I disagree, as would just about anyone who has ever sold wine in this business. Quite frankly, I am a bit confused by the statement and wondered if you wouldn’t mind to clarify?

Cheers!

Cameron

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