Lot 21
2004 Amador Lodi Zinfandel

The shipping process began for Club 32 Today in San Francisco. For January, the two wines in this club (pictured above) are by Cameron Hughes Winery. Selected by Erin Fitzpatrick, these wines are sure to please.

Lot 21, Amador County/Lodi Zinfandel 2004 arrived Tuesday. With trembling hands the Wineslacker received the vaunted bottle from the hands of "Chocolatea" Lorri K., Erotic Chocolatier Extraordinare. Driving home, he shivered with anticipation for the moment of revelation, the unveiling of yet another possible triumph for the California phenom of wine, Cameron Hughes. Already the 'slacker had trumpeted the virtues of other CH winners; Lot 15, a jammy blend of Napa County Cabs; Lot 16, the sophisticated Stag's Leap district Cab., and the buoyant Lot 17, heavenly hillside California Barbera. And then the lovely Lot 23, Meritage; what a bargain. Available to 'slackers and 'slackettes of all economic strata, thanks to Cameron's right on market target, all under $20. We ripped open the capsule and pulled up that cork with abandon. Pouring out the silky juice, we noted the clean, deep garnet color. A couple of quick swirls of the glass and we stuck our curious nose within. A sweet mixed berry bouquet with a plummy nose. So far, so good. Knocking back the largish German glass, we took a bit on the tongue. Hmmmm, balanced fruit with, with, something very out there; something vegital, something slightly asperagassy. Odd. Yet again. Yes, there was the fruit, the fine structure as promised, and now this unusual green grocer thing. Bell pepper? "Well", the 'slacker thought, "it's got some wild layered thing happening, kind o' like Ridge Zins, with their herbs and twigs." Interesting. In something of a hurry that night, the Wineslacker made his notes, pushed away the glass and headed for dreamland; morning approaching far too fast for extensive wine exploration. What to write... The next night, after a long, long day at the foundry, the 'slacker headed home. It struck him that perhaps his first taste of Lot 21 was too much in haste. We should have given the thing a few moments in the open air. Make a short story even shorter; we gave it a new trial, after a night of being opened and it was a new wine. The veg taste, what ever that was, was temporary. Open this baby up, leave it by itself for an hour or two; or, decant; whatever, and it rights itself like a well spun top. It lives up to it's promise and, while maybe a tad more conventional than one might be hoping for, it becomes one very honorable Zinfandel; well balanced, structured, very flavorful, with some pleasant minerality and a fine long finish. Maybe just a touch of black tea at the very end. And, once again, one exciting value. The lovely dinner companion and The Wineslacker entertained with the well regarded Rosenblum low end Vintner's Blend last weekend and it could not hold a candle to this fine bottle, just about the same price. Just take a little time to breath before beginning. We mention the following, for the sake of complete transparency; Lot 21, unlike the other Cameron Hughes Wines reviewed herein, was provided by the producer. Get it at Costco, soon, or, directly from the classy website of Cameron Hughes, himself.

Today’s wine was a sample kindly provided by Joshua Duyan from RiotWine, which is currently running it as a club selection. For starters I should tell you that I hate Cameron Hughes. Okay, that’s too strong — not really hate, but I’m pretty mad at him, because he’s stolen one of my dreams. Okay, not really stolen, more like shared, and not really a dream, more like an idle daydream. It’s the one where I think boy, wouldn’t it be cool during the current grape glut to take a third mortgage out on my house and cruise around the state looking for small lots of unwanted wine, taste everything out there, buy only the best stuff I find, then blend it, bottle it, and sell it cheap to good people looking for great value wines. Yeah, well, that would indeed be cool, and that’s what Cameron Hughes is doing. Maybe I had the idea first, or maybe he did, but no matter — he’s the guy with the experience, palate, and cash, and, if this bottle is any indication, he’s doing a darn good job turning my idle daydream into his reality. Oh, well, I’ll get over it, especially if he keeps putting out wines like this. The Lot #21 Zinfandel, an equal blend of Lodi and Amador fruit, is just 1% over the varietal name threshold at 76% Zinfandel, 16% Petite Sirah, & 8% Merlot (merlot?) There’s lots of good briary fruit in the nose, blackberry and boysenberry, as well as black pepper, sweet anise, and wet earth. The mouth is fleshy, ripe, and juicy like boysenberry cobbler with a cinnamon sprinkle, yet not at all overpowering. Tannins are soft, and the finish is quite dry and framed by toasty oak. This is pleasant, drinkable, and excellent for this price. Price: $11.00 (from CH website, or available to RiotWine members and maybe at Costco) Score: 175%

His secret: he knows that high end winemakers produce more wine than they can sell. Hughes buys the excess juice, blends it so it’s ready to drink today, swears he will never tell where he bought the juice and sells it in generic packages designating arbitrary lot numbers.

The hunt for the illusive Napa Valley Cabernet that is both stellar and affordable has left many a wine lover frustrated, with many losing their belief that such a scenario even exists - until today. Cameron Hughes, Negociant extraordinare, has done it again, this time with his limited release Lot 28 which arrived at the Danville Costco today. Treasure Hunters, start your engines, this wine will not be around after the weekend.

I hate to sound like an adman, but Cameron Hughes does it again� a fantastic juice at an unbeatable price. Drank a test bottle of this with Pablo, Psylvia and Lily accompanied by apples and cheddar. Deep ruby color. A heady nose of blackberry and cassis. Luscious cassis flavor, a little on the sweet side with a greenish brier note. Medium dark garnet. Interesting nose shows some cinnamon and mocha, dark berry. Lots of deep dark berry on the palate but great acidity and a solid grip of tannin gives this wine nice structure. Cinnamon, mocha, a little spice and the back. I first opened this last night. The big fruit was apparent from the get go but tannins from the 16% petite sirah just took over too quickly. I corked it, left it on the kitchen counter and sixteen hours in it is still evolving. The first noticeable difference is the softer, rounder, deeper fruit and just wonderful, coating mouthfeel The tannins are still very apparent but are much better integrated. I am really looking forward to drinking this wine with some pasta and sausage tonight. I think this wine really highlights Cameron's ability to blend grapes with very different tasting profiles to capture the best of each style of fruit and create just an amazingly complex final product. This stuff is a combination of old vine Lodi and Amador Zin, 16% petite, and 8% merlot. The tasting notes on the CH website shows chocolate covered raisins, but I am getting no raisiny, pruny flavors that always seem so prominent in the hot weather, big fruit zins on the market. Keep up the great work Cameron! 92 points

One of the oldest and most dubious sales pitches in the wine trade might be “this wine comes from the vineyard right next to [insert prestigious winery name here]. Similar quality, a fraction of the price.” Uh huh. So it was with my eyebrow duly raised that I met with Cameron Hughes. He lures Costco shoppers down the aisle to try his wine by telling them that he’s got a “$30 wine for $9.99.” Based on some rhapsodic reviews of his wines on wine web sites, the claim sounded plausible enough to lure me to meet with him for a coffee one morning on his recent trip to New York City. Hughes is not a wine maker. He is part wine finder, part marketer, and and part salesman. And he’s introducing an innovative way of making and selling wine that is delivering cost-savings to consumers in the form of some easy-drinking, value vino. He honed his skills working for five years in the late 1990s at The Wine Group, a company that few wine consumers have ever heard of despite being the third largest in the US through brands such as Franzia, Corbett Canyon, and Glen Ellen. He sold the wines “from foxhole to foxhole” in the fragmented market that is New York. But it wasn’t until he moved to California to work for an importer that he “learned how cheap this stuff actually is.” He said he saw the importer buying wine for $36 for a twelve-bottle case that ultimately sold for $18 a bottle in stores, or $216 a case. He investigated the California bulk market and found some cabernets that sold for $30 in a store actually cost the winery $4-$7. So he went out on his own and tried to tap the wine glut and introduce efficiencies in the often flabby wine market. After a couple of years on his own, barely breaking even, he needed a new business model. A friend told him that he had a good syrah and wanted a retailer to sell it. Cameron shopped it to Trader Joe’s, known for selling great value wines, and later Safeway. Both declined. Then he went to Costco. Cameron told me that the buyer “loved it and said ‘I’ll buy everything you’ve got.’” The wine was bottled as Cameron Hughes Wine Lot #1 Syrah and the 2,000 cases were sold entirely to Costco. Now on Lot #30, the lot program is a huge success having sold 37,000 cases last year. What’s the secret? Finding the right wines. Like J. Peterman in days of old, Cameron Hughes scours the world for exotica. He often finds his wine bargains in the “spot market” for fine wines. The wines he buys are often not good enough for the top blend for a winery. Or he buys the crop from a vineyard owner who otherwise would have their fruit lost as it upgraded a large blend. So he rescues them, saying “I’m a bird on the back of a hippo—a positive parasite.” “I’m a bird on the back of a hippo—a positive parasite.” Because Cameron Hughes Wines is more efficient, with low overhead and bypassing various tiers, they can often pay a premium to rescue good juice. But he won’t say what it is though, since he buys the wines with the understanding of not revealing their sources. Thus Cameron Hughes is the brand, or as he put it to me, a “super brand.” He called the major wine producers “strap-on marketing machines” who buy wine, bottle it, and ship it. He’s doing a similar thing but on a smaller scale, with higher-end wines, and greater efficiencies. Selling direct. Cameron Hughes Wines are only sold in two places, Costco stores (in California and beyond) and directly over the internet. Even though the wines are fairly limited production, Costco—the largest wine retailer in the country—is still a great retailer for his wines, Hughes says, since the Costco shopper is used to the treasure hunt. Since Costco might have sport coats one day and flat screen TVs the next, it’s not hard to imagine the customers buying up all his wine. And they did just that one weekend in the Danville, CA Costco where 1,000 cases of a new wine walked out the door. Many wine marketers, he told me, don’t like his enthusiastic hawking of his wines on the floor of the store since his actions are forcing them to ramp up staff ready to pour as well. It’s a great image that practically made me want to go to the Danville Costco to witness it myself—me, wine consumer, being serenaded in the aisles by wine marketers. But the Costco shoppers don’t just pick up the wine on a whim. Cameron has cultivated a rich email database that alerts legions of his fans to new wines, available at Costco and through him. Even though Cameron Hughes Wines is a licensed distributor, they also have an internet-only retail license and can sell directly to consumers. It’s disruptive. He says so. “But what’s good for the consumer is good for the wine business,” he said confidently. * * * * * So is there a Cameron Hughes style in the bottle? After our meeting in New York, he sent me some of his wine so that I could put them to the test in the glass. I would sum up the style to say the wines are reflective of their time. The reds are big and the whites are fruit forward. The wines represent some compelling wine values and even though I didn’t like them all, it’s definitely worth taking a flier on them—hey, it’s only ten bucks after all.

One of the oldest and most dubious sales pitches in the wine trade might be “this wine comes from the vineyard right next to [insert prestigious winery name here]. Similar quality, a fraction of the price.” Uh huh. So it was with my eyebrow duly raised that I met with Cameron Hughes. He lures Costco shoppers down the aisle to try his wine by telling them that he’s got a “$30 wine for $9.99.” Based on some rhapsodic reviews of his wines on wine web sites, the claim sounded plausible enough to lure me to meet with him for a coffee one morning on his recent trip to New York City. Hughes is not a wine maker. He is part wine finder, part marketer, and and part salesman. And he’s introducing an innovative way of making and selling wine that is delivering cost-savings to consumers in the form of some easy-drinking, value vino. He honed his skills working for five years in the late 1990s at The Wine Group, a company that few wine consumers have ever heard of despite being the third largest in the US through brands such as Franzia, Corbett Canyon, and Glen Ellen. He sold the wines “from foxhole to foxhole” in the fragmented market that is New York. But it wasn’t until he moved to California to work for an importer that he “learned how cheap this stuff actually is.” He said he saw the importer buying wine for $36 for a twelve-bottle case that ultimately sold for $18 a bottle in stores, or $216 a case. He investigated the California bulk market and found some cabernets that sold for $30 in a store actually cost the winery $4-$7. So he went out on his own and tried to tap the wine glut and introduce efficiencies in the often flabby wine market. After a couple of years on his own, barely breaking even, he needed a new business model. A friend told him that he had a good syrah and wanted a retailer to sell it. Cameron shopped it to Trader Joe’s, known for selling great value wines, and later Safeway. Both declined. Then he went to Costco. Cameron told me that the buyer “loved it and said ‘I’ll buy everything you’ve got.’” The wine was bottled as Cameron Hughes Wine Lot #1 Syrah and the 2,000 cases were sold entirely to Costco. Now on Lot #30, the lot program is a huge success having sold 37,000 cases last year. What’s the secret? Finding the right wines. Like J. Peterman in days of old, Cameron Hughes scours the world for exotica. He often finds his wine bargains in the “spot market” for fine wines. The wines he buys are often not good enough for the top blend for a winery. Or he buys the crop from a vineyard owner who otherwise would have their fruit lost as it upgraded a large blend. So he rescues them, saying “I’m a bird on the back of a hippo—a positive parasite.” “I’m a bird on the back of a hippo—a positive parasite.” Because Cameron Hughes Wines is more efficient, with low overhead and bypassing various tiers, they can often pay a premium to rescue good juice. But he won’t say what it is though, since he buys the wines with the understanding of not revealing their sources. Thus Cameron Hughes is the brand, or as he put it to me, a “super brand.” He called the major wine producers “strap-on marketing machines” who buy wine, bottle it, and ship it. He’s doing a similar thing but on a smaller scale, with higher-end wines, and greater efficiencies. Selling direct. Cameron Hughes Wines are only sold in two places, Costco stores (in California and beyond) and directly over the internet. Even though the wines are fairly limited production, Costco—the largest wine retailer in the country—is still a great retailer for his wines, Hughes says, since the Costco shopper is used to the treasure hunt. Since Costco might have sport coats one day and flat screen TVs the next, it’s not hard to imagine the customers buying up all his wine. And they did just that one weekend in the Danville, CA Costco where 1,000 cases of a new wine walked out the door. Many wine marketers, he told me, don’t like his enthusiastic hawking of his wines on the floor of the store since his actions are forcing them to ramp up staff ready to pour as well. It’s a great image that practically made me want to go to the Danville Costco to witness it myself—me, wine consumer, being serenaded in the aisles by wine marketers. But the Costco shoppers don’t just pick up the wine on a whim. Cameron has cultivated a rich email database that alerts legions of his fans to new wines, available at Costco and through him. Even though Cameron Hughes Wines is a licensed distributor, they also have an internet-only retail license and can sell directly to consumers. It’s disruptive. He says so. “But what’s good for the consumer is good for the wine business,” he said confidently. * * * * * So is there a Cameron Hughes style in the bottle? After our meeting in New York, he sent me some of his wine so that I could put them to the test in the glass. I would sum up the style to say the wines are reflective of their time. The reds are big and the whites are fruit forward. The wines represent some compelling wine values and even though I didn’t like them all, it’s definitely worth taking a flier on them—hey, it’s only ten bucks after all. We had some friends over and here are my thoughts: Lot 23 Meritage 2002: This blend of Sonoma and Napa fruit aromas of maturing fruit, not young any longer but hugely enjoyable still. Rating: quickly emptied. Lot 24: Excellent value Sonoma County syrah. One syrah-loving friend was quick to claim this bottle as his own. When he saw me pouring this bottle around to others, he encouraged me to instead leave it near him and pour Lot 27 to them. Rating: horded. Lot 16 Cabernet, Stag’s Leap: A very solid Napa cab. Rating: quickly emptied. Lot 19 Stellbosch merlot 2004: an interesting merlot for under $20? Small wonder he had to go to South Africa to get it. Crowd pleaser. Rating: emptied. Lot 21 Amador-Lodi zinfandel 2004: gobs of fruit, full-throttle zin, needs grilled meat. Rating: half-empty. Lot 27 Russian River Valley syrah: Competent but see Lot 24. Rating: half-empty.

Cameron Hughes takes home 7 medals in the Los Angeles International Wine and Spirits competition! Cameron Hughes Wine GOLD MEDAL Barbera Lot 17 Sierra Foothills 2004 SILVER MEDAL Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 18 Stellenbosch 2004 SILVER MEDAL Zinfandel Lot 21 California 2004 BRONZE MEDAL Blanc de Blanc Lot 25 Carneros 1998 BRONZE MEDAL Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 28 Napa Valley 2002 BRONZE MEDAL Sauvignon Blanc Lot 26 Marlborough 2006 BRONZE MEDAL Syrah Lot 27 Russian River Valley 2005