Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  7/9/2007 (link)

  (Tour St. Bonnet) UPDATE: Web Site Upgrades To let everyone know, we’ve started processing orders with our new OARS system and it will take a week or so to iron out the kinks (thanks for being patient). We processed a number of orders on Friday and over the weekend using the system it worked like a champ - the only problem was that it forgot to charge sales tax to locals! While this may seem like a nice gesture, the state may not be so happy so we’ll have to process the sales tax separately with this first batch from over the weekend (the issue has been solved so subsequent orders will be processed in-tact with tax). If you are local and you received a charge on your account over the weekend that does not match up with your invoice, it is probably for this reason - the sales tax will be processed separately. As mentioned above, this is the only time it will be done this way and the tax will be processed as normal with your invoice in the future. Also, the new system likes to process orders much faster than in the past - you may notice multiple charges on your account from orders over the past month processed on the same day. If your credit card company calls you to find out what’s going on, we’re just catching up so all of your unprocessed orders from the past 4-5 weeks may be done at the same time. Credit card companies do not like this (multiple charges from the same source in one day) so we’ve giving everyone a heads-up. You can let them know this is a one-time occurrence and moving forward we’ll process orders in sequence as they are invoiced. In the end, this will allow all of your orders to be viewed in near real-time with processed/arrived/shipped status updated automatically. This is what we’ve been working toward all spring so it’s quite exciting to see it come to fruition. If you have not done so already, please sign-up for your personal account on the web site so you can take advantage of the new real-time account features and tracking. We’ve been bugging everyone about this for the last six months so hopefully you’ve had a chance to do it. If you do not have an account on the web site, tracking your orders will be more cumbersome than necessary so please do us a favor and sign up on the home page - you will be glad you did: www.garagistewine.com We should have everyone’s inventory uploaded in the next week or two (some as early as a few days from now). Thanks for moving forward with us! Garagiste ************************************ Tour St. Bonnet Dear Friends, If you are stock-piling everyday Bordeaux that delivers quality far in excess of it’s price, look no further. From the epicenter of the vintage, this Medoc estate produced a wine that is the equal of many Pauillac 2nd wines in 2003 and it wouldn't surprise me if many of you preferred it to several of the prestige seconds. While I’m not going to say this is 2003 Forts de Latour, it can compete easily with a number of Chateau bottlings at twice the price and it is a top choice as an intellectual party wine or dinner party choice if you need an excellent well-priced wine of certain breed. With the dollar at such a poor exchange and Bordeaux prices so high it appears that many in Aquitaine have lost their marbles, it’s always gratifying to find something like this - a wine most of you can afford to enjoy any night of the week. At this stage, for a 2003 that is basically a poor-man’s baby Cos d’Estournel (although most compare it to Pauillac) the price looks pretty darn good to me. This enchanting example has graced my table on more than a dozen occasions and each time I feel like it needs more decant time to show its pedigree (a very good sign). The wine appears to be deepening and I would guess its peak days are still a few years away. This is a wine to enjoy without pretense, banter or (for lack of a better term) wine-guilt and I’m thankful for that. A great bargain: ONE SHIPMENT ONLY AT THIS PRICE - directly form the source with perfect provenance VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as a terrific bargain from a very expensive vintage: 2003 Chateau Tour St. Bonnet Cru Bourgeois (Medoc) (WA86-88) Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Bord8840