Will these wines improve with age beyond 2016?
A few of us at the winery are personally drinking the 2004–holding up quite nicely if we do say so ourselves! I’d say drink up till 2018 for best enjoyment.
thank you for getting back to me so quickly. and thank you @thunderthighs also. I guess I should have read the faq.
I would have been interested in an offering of the 2009 only (at least 2x, possibly 3x), but have no interest in the smoked 2008. With rare exceptions, it’s a vintage for which I avoid the Cabs assiduously.
I drink no well-made Cabernet (other than at tastings) under the age of 10. The 2004 should just be beginning to come into its own and should continue to develop at least until then.
RPM, it’s been a while since I’ve been on wine woot’s forums. I remember reading about your wine tours. My wife and I are going to be in Napa in mid October. Any places you suggest? Our favorite is Corison. We tend to be cab drinkers but also enjoy a good zin or blend.
Where Cabernets are concerned, I never act contrary to rpm’s advice, but in this case – in for one. I’m actually looking forward to tasting the “smoked” 2008. I’ve been so careful to avoid that vintage from that area, that I have no idea what all the fuss was about. Hey - rpm’s standing advice is “Pull a lot of corks. Remember what you taste.” You can’t remember what you’ve never tasted, so…
Off topic, but somewhat related…not about today’s Geyser Peak offering, but rather the Merlot and Red Wine offerings from G.P. early this month. Ordered both on the same day, and the Merlot was here (in L.A.) in an amazing 6 days! The Red? Not so fast. Woot combined my purchases into a single order with a single tracking number, which my order history now shows as shipped and delivered…but the Red is MIA! I’d be interested to know if there are any other Wooters out there – Geyser Peak fans – who made the same purchase and are having the same experience? Logic tells me that four bottles of vino ordered at the same time from the same winery would have been shipped in a single box.
The 2008 Tour website is still up and has many good suggestions. Just don’t expect anyone except tasting room staff to have any time for you in October - crush and wine making will be in full swing and everyone will be busy as he l l. [There is a reason we schedule the Tours in late July - it’s the time most wine makers are likely to be able to spend some time with us.]
I also ordered the GP merlot, GP Red and Ardente 1997 Cabernet but yesterday, only received the merlot. I had the same concern because there was only one tracking number for all three purchases made on August 2nd. I emailed Woot customer service and they asked me to wait until Monday to see if the other packages are delivered.
EDIT #1: I received one additional tracking number on 8/17 and amy final tracking number on 8/18. Looks like everything is going to be ok for this order.
It’s your $. It’s a conflict - in a way - between the producer and the wine drinker. The producer has to make and try to sell the wine every year, pretty much regardless of conditions (if it’s really bad, the wine can usually be bulked out, but, no one wants to have to do that). The drinker would prefer only to drink wine from great (or at least above average) years. Especially considering that in California, the price doesn’t drop significantly (at least until it won’t sell for several years…) in poorer years. In Europe, you can sometimes sample great wines from off vintages at bargain prices - at least learning the characteristics of the estate/style - though it will not show you what the wine is capable of.
Based on my experience, and my own tasting, I form general impressions of vintages (knowing that there will always be exceptions - people who made lousy wine in good years and people who made great wine in off years) and then try to buy the years I believe will be stronger and age better, and avoid those I think will be below average. I don’t particularly like ‘smoky’ wines generally, and have not tasted anything red from 2008 - other than some Pinot - that did anything for me. But, YMMV.
If you are building a cellar, you buy larger quantities of the best years, and fill in from lesser years to have things to drink while you’re waiting to drink your cellared wines. Putting together a serious Cab cellar is a long term proposition - if you follow my advice and hold the wines a minimum of 10 years from vintage (and some very great wines much longer) before you start to drink them.
The rewards are great - in the past 10 days I’ve had a 1978 Ridge, a 1979 BV Georges de Latour, a 1989 Corison and a 1997 Corison. Absolutely worth the time, money, and effort (to refrain from opening wines).
I had the same order and same result, except I’ve had no response from CS.
RPM rolls like a balla’! 
I just opened one. Fantastic! I followed a bottle of Chateau Monteleone Cab and this wine was as good.