ANOTHER WINE EMERGENCY ALERT!

How about a FANTASTIC $80 Napa Syrah for less than $13/bottle?

Lot 16 Napa Valley Syrah from CamX

The Wine Market is rapidly shifting beneath our feet, and the oversupply of high-end wines is creating incredible bargains. We've previously discussed in several essays a man who is making these market conditions work especially well for us wine lovers-- the California-based maverick wine genius Cameron Hughes. In chronological order:

HOW TO BUY $60 WINE FOR $20

THE PARTY’S OVER

NOT SO FAST!

To. summarize, Cameron Hughes is the ultimate disruptor-- a deeply knowledgeable industry insider strategically positioned to buy upper-crust Californian wine gems from cash-light boutique wineries and then sell them to his loyal adherents (like me) under his own label for mere nickels on the dollar... and somehow get rich doing so. The CamX company is the second iteration of his third entrepreneurial endeavor; just call it Cam 3.2.

CamX's growing list of current offerings seems to include even more fantastic bargains than he had offered in his previous ventures. A parallel and independent website (camxcellar.com) has naturally arisen with a spreadsheet tracking every CamX offering with its original price, CamX's discounted price, and educated guesses as to its NDA-protected origin. Here you'll see that the numbers are extremely consumer-friendly.

Now about this 2023 Syrah, listed as Lot # 16... here is Cam's personal description:

Best Syrah Ever? Heck Yeah!

Back up the truck? HECK YEAH!

Sourced from the best Syrah blocks in the massive, legendary "vineyard that must not be named" that straddles Atlas Peak to Pritchard Hill, Lot 16 is an absolutely stunning wine and I believe the best Syrah I have ever bottled. Normally priced for, let's say, well over $80/bottle, it is yours today for the ridiculous price of just $149/case DELIVERED!

Folks, this is Syrah turned up to 11. Now, don't take that the wrong way...this is not fat, overwrought, overdone shite. This fantastic Syrah is, indeed, pure dynamite but it is precision-built dynamite guided by one of Napa's premier consulting winemakers along with the wineries own rising star winemaker. Everything here is in proportion: massive structure, massive complexity, all chiseled from stone and perfectly balanced. Yummy and hedonistic yet, at the same time, restrained and elegant. I'm pretty sure (inside info) this is the best Syrah they've ever produced and purely a function of the marketplace that any of it made its way into my hands. Trust me on this one, Syrah-lovers!

WOW color, inky and opaque, this is clearly a massively concentrated wine. Brawny, meaty and broad-shouldered, it is also hugely aromatic with a crazy complex bouquet of ripe plum, blackberry pie, graham cracker, smoked meat and bacon fat with a kiss of iodine and cedar. As it opens, the bouquet is complexed with cocoa, lavender and red rock. Rich, ripe and seamless on entry, you quickly encounter a massive wall of chewy, red-rock coated tannins that crash and unfurl ripe black and blue fruit wrapped in chocolate and lifted with red rock, raspberry and savory cocoa notes in an epic finish of chocolate, red rock, plum and blackberry that literally persists for minutes.  Massively concentrated but beautifully knit together, this is an absolutely stunning, palate-staining wine that will easily live another 20 years. 

100% Syrah, 100% Single-Vineyard; 70-80% new French oak. 15% alcohol by volume.

I'll just add three points to Cam's exuberance--

One, get used to it-- 15% Alcohol has become the new norm for fully-ripe and fully expressive California reds crafted from premium grape varieties harvested from premium vineyards. To maximize one's enjoyment, we recommend cooling (but not "chilling") such wines prior to serving with a 10-15 minute dunk in a stockpot of cold tap water. (The old "room temperature rule" for reds was adopted back when rooms were cooler and wines were lower in alcohol; lowering the serving temperature takes some of the heat out of the high alcohol.)

Two, this 2023 Syrah is very young to be this enjoyable. Here we have the highly infrequent combination of youthful power and structure with a finely-detailed and fully accessible flavor profile. I recently described this wine's power to a friend as "a pissed-off fullback on third-and-short." Now imagine that fullback overpowering the stout front defensemen and then dancing through the fleet defensive backs all the way to the end zone... a rare combination of power and finesse... and it is equally rare to find this in a single footballer or in a single glass of wine. But here we have it, folks.

And three-- the Syrah grape sits barely a whisker behind THE ROYAL BROTHERS Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir in the hierarchy of œnological nobility... only, perhaps, because Syrah's telltale perfume and flavor profile is less overtly identifiable than those of the other two. But make no mistake-- Syrah performs magnificently everywhere Cabernet Sauvignon does in California and Washington, ripens into a burly Aussie rugger of a wine (as "Shiraz") Down Under, yields some of France's most serious reds in the northern Rhône appellation of Hermitage, and even acquits itself beautifully as an earthy, minerally guest soloist in Tuscany and Sicily.

We highly recommend purchasing this CamX Lot 16 Syrah before it sells out. Available in 3-packs, 6-packs, or full 12-bottle cases. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets.