Dee Dee wrote:

> What I find more bizarre is that it tasted as good as the du Pape that I
> paid $20 for. I just can't understand that. If it were just me, I'd chalk
> it up to 'my taster," but DH felt the same way. Perhaps the du Pape wasn't
> as good as it should have been.

Dee,
There's plenty of swill that comes from Chateauneuf-du-Pape, just as
there is from any other area. Likewise, there's plenty of great wine
made in areas that aren't entitled to any name other than "Cotes du
Rhone." In this case, Dom. de Nalys actually has a decent reputation,
but you have to wonder why they decided to sell it to Costco in the
first place. For Costco to market it at $20, they probably can't pay
Nalys any more than $10 per bottle, which is probably 50% less than
they'd get selling it under their own name (their '04 is selling for
$25-30 retail). In fact, their '05 white is being sold under their
name, which makes me wonder again about the decision to sell it to
Costco. I suspect that they weren't happy with what they had on their
hands and chose to "declassify" the wine by selling it to Costco for
marketing under their own name. Perhaps the most surprising thing is
that Nalys agreed to have their name appear on the wine! ;-)

Mark Lipton
--
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