Lot 95
2007 Valle Central, Chile Meritage

Sunday, February 1, 2009 Cam the Man: Cameron Hughes wine A few years ago, a man named Cameron Hughes had a great idea. Buy up super premium wine that would ordinarily end up on the bulk market and ultimately blended into not so premium wine, then put it in a bottle as is with his Cameron Hughes label on the bottle. Or, even better, if the wine was bottled but unlabelled, just slap a Cameron Hughes label on it. If the sale of a winery led to orphaned wine, he'd be there to buy up the leftovers. If a product line ended, Cameron Hughes would be there, too. If a winery just need to raise capital or clear inventory, he'd also be there. There's a name for this sort of middle-man wine trader, a negociant. This is actually quite common in Europe, but Cameron Hughes was the first negociant in America to really tap into the premium market and start bottling the unadulterated good stuff under his own label. It took a while to get this idea off the ground, but now Cameron Hughes had bottled over 100 "lots" of wines in his Lot Series. Each "lot" originates from a particular region or (anonymous) winery. They're never backblended with lesser wine, so what you see is what you get. If you buy a Cameron Hughes Lot 75 Oak Knoll Cabernet, you know you're getting Cab from a sub-appellation in Napa, probably from a single producer. Now, as awesome as paying $12 for wine that would cost $30 in its "native" bottle sounds, there are some drawbacks. Cameron Hughes keeps costs down by constantly moving inventory. He bottles then sells the wine at a pretty quick pace. However, some wines really do need some time in the bottle to integrate. Many upper-end producers (i.e. the ones who orphan their wine occasionally) age their wine extensively in new oak and would bottle age even after barrel aging. So in many cases you'll be buying a wine that is very young. But if you can let it rest or decant a young Cameron Hughes wine, you'll typically get something that outperforms the price. In other cases, the wine really wasn't up to par to go into a $30 bottle. But even in those circumstances you're not going to get a bad deal paying $10 or $15 per bottle. The bottom line is, at the very least, you will get expensive tasting wine since it was made using costly methods even if there's some moderate imbalance in the finished wine. Here a few Cameron Hughes wines I've tasted over the last year.

All together now, let's Blend in By Gabe Sasso (winereviews@bullz-eye.com) 05/01/2009 The Cameron Hughes Lot 95 Meritage is made from fruit sourced in Valle Central Chile. The blend is Cabernet Sauvignon (50 percent), Merlot (35 percent), and Carmenere (15 percent). Carmenere, for those unfamiliar with the grape, is most often found in Chile and is starting to emerge there as a stand-alone varietal. The wines it produces are often big and distinct. There are 5,000 cases of this wine and the suggested retail price is $10. The nose of this South American blend is loaded with black cherries. Toasty oak notes and eucalyptus play a subtler but present role. Once you take the first sip you’re hit with bright, slightly jam-laden, rich, berry fruit characteristics. What really shines brightly is the Carmenere. It adds dark, dank brooding fruit that carries from the mid-palate all the way to the finish, along with vanilla and white pepper. The wine has supple, approachable, yielding tannins and sufficient acidity. Two things stand out most immediately about Lot 95. First is that for $10 this wine offers a lot of drinking pleasure and more than sufficient complexity. It’s basically a $20 blend with a $10 price tag. Second, it absolutely jumps out of the bottle, and is ready to go the second you pop the cork.

FIVE CHW wines make the list of the best value wines from the second half of 2010, based on Spirit of Wine specific criteria for determining "best value". Lot 159 Santa Barbara Chardonnay; Lot 175 Napa Merlot; Lot 177 Napa Syrah; Lot 151, Columbia Valley Riesling/Chenin Blanc; and Lot 95 Chilean Meritage.