Trust fall time!

Here’s how it works. Blindly drop a few of these into your cart. They’ll land safely in your Locker, and we’ll usher them to your door.

After that, we’ll gain a few trust points when you taste how FREAKIN’ AMAZING this stuff is. I’m putting this right up there with the discovery of Alec’s Banana Choco Chunk ice cream. With the cinnamon swirl, dates, and dark chocolate chunks… an utterly delectable treat that has no business being as good as it is.

But that’s kinda pricey. This? For twenty-four dollars, is the opposite. When you can get a bottle this tasty for 3 gallons of gas here in CA? Put on your walking shoes. Just TRUST YOUR AGENTS OF WINE!!

Sometimes we’re on the fence about a wine, simply because the producer is a black hole of nothing. Resistance was futile here.

Like you, we’ve never heard of Nilu. But the praise was a flowin’ around the tasting table. Agent Crush noted, “hell yessss! delicious, rich and full bodied”, Rhone (me) wrote “gorgeous pure ripe blackberry sweet fruit and structure, soft tannin, sweet vanilla. Yum.” And Agent Lees, showing off her “pro tasting” POV, aptly wrote, “Really pretty nose: concentrated blackberry, red currant – the palate has mocha, but layered with fruit currant jelly, bay leaf, toasty oak on finish - fine-grained tannins.”

What emerged was a unanimous verdict from every Agent. A rare occurrence; Agent Crush ultimately put his claim on it, but really this is a team pick.

Huge crowd-pleasing potential here. Terrifyingly easy to drink, packed with sultry layers of blackberry coulis, Tahitian vanilla bean, black currant, baker’s chocolate, and wisps of violet, with not a hard edge to be found. Just pure, utter “can’t put it down” sipping once you pop.

The Chalk Hill AVA in Sonoma powers Lancaster, Trinité Estate, Medlock Ames, the eponymous Chalk Hill Estate, and a little producer named Vérité you might know. Literally right next door to their vineyard!! Jk jk… but seriously, none of them can hold a candle to the value on display here.

And while NILU might draw a blank in our collective memories, perhaps Kukeri or Meadowcroft ring a bell? We’ve sold many of their wines over the years, so Petar Kirilov, the same winemaker behind their fantastic site-specific releases, makes this wine. No scores to speak of, but I’d put my money on an easy 94+ here if I were a betting man…just sayin’.

I can already see the posts in the Operative Hangout: “This for $24? Seriously?! Wish I got more!” or “WOW! I am glad I got a case of this!” Which one will you be?