Hello Free Rangers,
First order of business is that the Willett Rye winner from last week’s offer was just pulled from a literal hat, well the order number was, and that number belonged to Erich B, who has a free bottle of Willett Rye 4yr waiting for him. And thanks to everybody who scooped up bottles along with those entries. 
Cheers!
It’s been a weight for a long time now, navigating regulations and guidelines in attempts to keep our little business and all of its people as healthy as possible; and it seems whatever our policy of the moment we’re getting pressure from somewhere to do something differently. We felt okay for the last few months making masking optional for vaccinated customers (which is virtually everybody around here), because of our local hospital numbers and vaccination rates as well as the reduced summer foot traffic in the shop. But this last weekend was the first time we’ve seen significant concentrations of people in our space since we discontinued the in-store tasting program. And sure it’s usually when there are already a couple of locals in here and six tourists descend to share in the buying of a single bottle, but it’s still a lot of people breathing the same air. As such, we are requesting that all customers wear face masks in the shop until further notice. We’ll be updating all of our signage today.
And now, the good news: It’s Magical Mystery time!
I am nowhere near the final stage of the cellar dig/re-org, but there is already an impressive pile of lost and found bottles that need good homes, so we’re offering a trio of Magical Mystery 6-packs. For those of you who have not been with us for one of these, we’re putting together 6-packs from bottles lost and found in cellar, as well as odds and ends from my personal collection, which means that these bottles could be literally anything. As some of these corks have been in bottle for decades, you may want to invest in a two-prong cork puller, or be prepared to excavate a potentially crumbling cork with a conventional wine key. Contrary to some very ill-information out there on the interwebs, a cork that breaks has nothing to do with a wine being “corked” (which is actually the presence chemical taint). Many of the finest wines ever to pass my lips came from bottles whose corks just barely made it here to the future, and became chunky wine-stained dust when disturbed. I mean the stuff is made out of dry tree bark. But I digress….
As per previous such releases, you can expect the retail value of your bottles to be a good bit beyond the sale price, and many of these bottles in these vintages are not available for sale anywhere on Earth. None of these are castoffs, and the vast majority were purchased with the intent of drinking myself. Many are old enough to legally drink themselves. Per my collecting proclivities of the era, these bottles are almost entirely red, and they lean heavily toward new world fruit sources, though not necessarily new world styles. Vintages range from 1991 to 2012, and you can be sure that every bottle in your bag will have some decent bottle age. If you’d like a bottle of white in your mix, please say so in the notes at checkout and we’ll do our best to accommodate. If you have any questions, please feel free, and we tried to make as many available as possible, but fair warning, these packs went out pretty quickly last round. (And yes, every bottle pictured below is going directly into a 6-pack right now.)
(!) Click here for the hidden Magical Mystery 6-packs page (!)
The Cellar door: $175
– minimum retail value $234 ($39/btl)
* max 2 per customer *
The Next Step : $225
– minimum retail value $294 ($39/btl)
* max 2 per customer *
Les Grands Chiens: $499
– minimum retail value $654 ($109/btl)
* max 1 per customer *
*** This week only, as supplies last! ***
*** No other discounts apply! ***
Until next time,
Jack
Proprietor
Free Range Wine & Spirits
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