On one hand, I really don’t think making 20 different varietal wines as L&L/Mandolina does is the recipe for making really great wines. Just too many different nuances to nail on each varietal for everything to be really great vintage-to-vintage.
But let’s a take one step back: $11 per bottle, shipped. For that price, if the wines have some varietal character and aren’t overly spoofy, that’s a win.
Is the wine from Los Alamos… Radioactive?
the toccata was very nice last time - not sure I need 12 bottles after recent wine.woot buys though…
Yeah! Loved the Mandolina from past Woots. I’ve also been waiting all month to use my “anniversary” coupon so I’m in.
Any Sparking options for the holidays coming down the pike?
I bought the last case offering from Mandolina and was very pleased with the wine - nice variety to have on hand for all different tastes.
As I’ve said before, I’m not an expert on wine. I don’t drink it often, but am drinking it more and more. The $11.25 a bottle price makes it worth a risk for the others. From my experience there isn’t an undrinkable bottle of wine. Drink a good bottle (or two if you roll like that) then you can drink anything.
I’ll try cellaring the Nebbiolo just encase. Thanks for the advice!
Los Alamos Valley, Ca is a little ways from Los Alamos, NV. If it’s radioactive, then it’s on purpose.
I remember the last case of being kind of hit and miss. 1 bottle was outright bad, never thought to get it replaced. Some I liked and some I didn’t so for me I shall pass.
Unfortunately I don’t save tasting notes but I think I didn’t care for the Nebbiolo.
So are all of these drinkable now?
(assuming the Nebbiolo is drinkable at all? 
)
Hmm, I also ordered the Quartet and got two bad Nebbiolos. They sent me four bottles of other wine in replacement. I felt the customer service was wonderful. I’m sorry you didn’t have the same experience.
Johanna
An interesting offering. Seems to be a very good value (as compared to ordering the case oneline from the winery). But there is a good question as to the quality of the wine, so the QPR is still a bit foggy to me.
It would be nice to have some of these as gifts, but it seems that some may be undrinkable. I don’t want to give a gift that can be turned into a club if it’s bad.
How far is Los Alamos, NV from Los Alamos, NM?
I bought the case last time. We still have some left but enjoyed the ones we drank. I can’t give specifics and the varities except to say we’re still saving the sweet ones for guest who like that sort of wine.
I’d probably have to drink at least 3 bottles to drink a corked or heat damaged wine…
I knew there was something I was forgetting to do last night … and you would have thought cross-posting to the new Pub about doing a SoCal gathering would have helped!!
Courtesy of CJ:
So join or create a gathering!
was kind of excited to see mandolina up, as I recognized it from a tasting at local wine bar (their barbera, though, not one of these).
i’m only gonna pass on this one because SWMBO has already intimated that I am stocked up pretty good for the holidays (read as “buy no more wine”).
i would be very interested to try their nebbiolo, as i am obsessed with piedmonte varietals, even from california or mexico.
IIRC, there’s usually an offer in December that will get delivered before New Year’s Day. Same in June in time for the 4th of July.
This is the exchange I had with LLmanyhats when another L & L product was offered. I bought that offering also".
"mutts wrote:
I’m tempted to jump in, but these are the same folks responsible for the Mandolina from a few years back. I opened the Nebiollo a few weeks ago, and it was horrible. It was just bad wine.
I’m on the fence about this offering.
I have apologized for this in the past and we have made good on any bad bottles that we were notified of. I believe the Nebbiolo that you are speaking of must have been from the few cases of bad wine that were shipped during that offering. As we explained back then, we discovered that there was some wine that got bottled at the end of the bottling session when normally the valves would have been turned off. In other words, that wine was bottled during the transition from one varietal to the next (on the bottling schedule). Woot replaced any bottles that they were aware of, and the winery accommodated a few others.
For anyone that came across a bad bottle then, or now can contact me and we will resolve the problem.
We do not want anyone to be disappointed in our wines or our Mandolina brand.
Interestingly, I thought the Nebbiolo was quite good, but I did follow the wineries recommendations and didn’t open it for a couple of years.
I didn’t crack it until 2009. When I heard there were others that were disappointed also, I spoke up. There apparently was a bad batch. Varietials were intermingled in the bottling. Either you got from the bad batch, or you didn’t. I was only some of the Nebbiolos. They should have been a little more proactive and offered a replacement of the Nebs by email since they knew people were likely to hold onto them a little while without opening.