Bonny Doon Le Cigare Blend Half-Bottle 6-Pack - (Your Choice: Red Blend, White Blend, or Mixed)
$54.99–$84.99
Red Blend 6-Pack:
$84.99 $164.00 48% off List Price
(6) - 2011 Le Cigare Volant Red Blend, 375ml Half Bottle
or
White Blend 6-Pack:
$54.99 $116.00 53% off List Price
(6) - 2013 Le Cigare Blanc White Blend, 375ml Half Bottle
or
Mixed Red & White Blend 6-Pack:
$64.99 $140.00 54% off List Price
(3) - 2011 Le Cigare Volant Red Blend, 375ml Half Bottle
(3) - 2013 Le Cigare Blanc White Blend, 375ml Half Bottle
Hey, wine fans, it’s time for some arbitrage!
If you love whites, but know someone who loves reds, get them to go in with you on the mixed six packs here.
For $120, you can get six whites and six reds, as compared to $140 if you buy one of the reds and one of the whites. Get the mixed cases, split them and profit! Or, buy mixed cases for yourself, instead of matching numbers of the red and white cases.
Last time Bonny Doon was on sale, I said I would love an opportunity to try this wine, and the woot Gods have delivered! In for a case (half case I guess) of mixed. Now I can finish a bottle solo and not get a headache thanks WD!
But of course.
Excited to have B D vack in the fray. They’ve been a great partner over the years.
[grape]
Finally, after years of secret negotiations with Dick Cheney and Britney Spears in my underground bunker somewhere near Area 51 Woot sent me the golden ticket! So, I did some CIA type sleuthing and discovered I’d get both a red and a white. I invited a few wine loving friends over and naturally I decided to make a wild colossal scallop beurre blanc over a crisp potato latke to go with the white and rosemary garlic crusted lamb lollipops with a port wine reduction to go with the red. But enough about how awesome I am at cooking, let’s get to the wine.
Upon opening the white nothing really jumped out at us. The label is cool, has a UFO theme, which is neat, but the wine itself wasn’t anything special. Tasting it it was beeswax all day and left a heavy mouth feel, almost waxy. And that’s it. It didn’t open up over time or change in any way. We were pretty disappointed in it and felt that there were so many areas for improvement. I would love to tell you more but the only thing we tasted was beeswax. As for pairing it with the food, it didn’t really help it. So, truth be told, I opened a pinot gris instead. I really wish this would be a better review but I’m trying to be as honest as possible.
Ok, onto the red. Once opened, it had the initial nose of white, smoky pepper and the hotness of alcohol. On the pallet was bing cherry and, again, beeswax. Pairing with the food we enjoyed it a little better but not much. Other than that, not a lot of depth or character. I think that if you’re new to drinking wine this would be a pretty ok bottle or, maybe my pallet isn’t as sophisticated as I wish it were. All-in-all we liked the red more than the white but not by much.
No matter what the price point I don’t think I’d buy this wine. I hope I’m not being too harsh but I don’t know how not to be honest with my critique. I really enjoyed the experience and would love to do it again but we just didn’t enjoy this wine. Cool label, though.
Bonny Doon has a great reputation, but, there must be a few typos in the description or something weird is going on in the winery. For example the pH of the reds and whites seem switched. A red that comes in at the stated 3.34 is rather acidic ahd hard to drink while the white that has a stated pH of 3.64 is gonna be rather insipid. Also the Alcohol by Volume: 14.5% for the white is high, too “hot”!
Have bought Woot’s Bonny Doon before and loved them. Not in today.
Really don’t need to spend any $$ on wine today…but a mixed pack is pretty tempting…hmmmmmmm
$130, not $120 if you buy two of the mixed, but still a deal over one red pack and one white pack
These are half bottles? Because the photo of the labels say they are 750’s
On a side note, I guess I wasn’t aware that anyone farmed picpoul in California, I’ve always seen it in French wines.
They are half bottles (375ml). We weren’t able to get photos of the half bottles in time.
CT notes seem to say that the red is kinda at the end of its best drinking window. Any thoughts about that from folks here?
I have these, but totally forgot to open them!
Stand by, wooters. I’ll be back with some quick impressions and longer notes to follow.
[labrat]
This is PnP right out of the fridge for the white and out of the 55* cellar for the red. Both are now sitting out to open and warm a bit.
The white smells like sweet orange, a bit of butter, and orchard fruit. Really faint, though. This isn’t a very strong bouquet. On the palate, it’s pretty flat. There’s a hint of butter and some pineapple/acidity on the sides of the palate, but not much else.
The red smells deep. Dark cherries and wood. On the palate, the tannins are starting to dry out a bit. There’s fruit, but it’s behind some structure.
My experience is pretty in line with Matt’s above. These are a pass for me. I’ll retaste in a couple hours and post again.
Hi there, thanks for your input. That really is our ABV for the white, the number is accurate, but thanks for your opinion about it.
In regards to your questions about the pH and TA, those numbers are also correct.
The 2013 harvest was very warm, and our acid levels were lower than normal, pHs were rising. We don’t like to add too much acid to our wines, as we like to keep them natural. Our Roussanne in the white blend typically comes in a a higher pH and then the blend goes through malolactic fermentation. So, that would explain the stats for the Cigare Blanc.
The 2011 vintage was really cool and wet, so that would explain why we could have picked early to avoid rain, which would lead to a lower pH. Generally speaking, when we harvest our Grenache, that is a pretty standard pH for us, as our Grenache is coming from the Salinas Valley which is a very cool climate.
Both of these wines are known vintage after vintage for their age-worthiness, and the acidity helps the wine’s ability to age.
We’re sorry to hear you aren’t interested in any of the 3 offers - the 2013 Le Cigare Blanc received 91 points Wine Enthusiast and the 2011 Le Cigare Volant 93 points. Both have been extremely popular vintages for us, and we hope you’ll reconsider!
Cheers!
I’ve only had the white in a 750ml bottle a few months ago. It was pretty simple. My CT notes said it was melon and honeysuckle – echoing the ‘beeswax’ that others were getting.
Really thinking about the red as i’ve been wanting to try this wine and at $28/750ml it’s a fair price.
um, that’s not accurate.
Is that really a UFO? I might buy them just for that.
Uhm…Ok. We didn’t have photos?
Retasted the white and red, now both at room temp and sitting in the glass for the past couple hours.
The white is more expressive. Clearly identifiable as a Rhône white. And it’s taken on a really interesting chalky texture that I really like. But it’s still only okay.
Not much change to the red. More smokey on the nose (nice), more raspberry on the palate (nice), but still pretty drying for my palate.
And yes, the label is VERY cool, as is the top of the screw top (alien face). And, I love half-bottles.
same photos as when we offered this up last year. the only reference to 750’s is on the back label which his the same information as the 375.
no biggie. this is a fun deal.