If you’ve noticed, Free Rangers,
Only two photographs hang in the main room of the shop: 1) A rose bloom from a church yard in Bayreuth, Germany, from the day of a dear friend’s wedding. 2) Sean Thackrey listening to a barrel of his Cabernet, at the barn in Bolinas, CA in 2012. If this does’t make it clear, please let me clarify that I have a profound amount of respect for Sean Thackrey, who is one of the most engaging human beings with whom I’ve ever had the pleasure to share a moment and a glass, and he is the sculptor behind much of the most pleasurable juice ever to pass my gratefully astonished lips.
On a personal note, Sean’s wines and very existence have facilitated and bolstered friendships with a number of my favorite humans on Earth, and is largely responsible for my initial success in this second life business of mine in wine. Having recently morphed from an irrecoverable asshole rock critic to a reasonably affable wine blogger and Brooklyn booze consultant, and having just recently helped St. Anselm take its rare wine program to the next level, I was in a unique position- with the help and enthusiasm of Joe Carroll- to redirect an aborted Thackrey wine event in Manhattan to Williamsburg. This is how my very first professional wine dinner was with one of the finest producers in the world at the greatest little grill joint in Brooklyn. Thanks again, Joe. That really meant the world to me.
Sean Thackrey is the maddest of geniuses, putting the Hatter to shame on both accounts. I know it gets thrown around without much care these days, but genius is not a word I use lightly. What Sean achieved in bottle between 1986 and 2015 is a profoundly humbling body of work, and the fruits of his labor have created many of the most beguiling, otherworldly, and long lived bottles that currently exist- the greatest and boldest of which are entirely capable of outliving us all. Two great videos survive on YouTube, if you’d like an in person picture of Sean himself, and his rustically charming sagacity: 1) The Obsessives Series on Winemaking Ep and 2) Oz and James visit Sean Thackrey (skip to 5:10 to bypass Gallo- though the whole episode is highly entertaining). Not many have been lucky enough to visit this wonderful artist in his element, and these two videos are as close as most will ever come. And as an aside, I like to think of myself in the wine world as equal parts Oz and James. All the tuffs are scruffian.
I believe this last growing season was the first since at least 1981 that Sean didn’t make any wine with his own hands, though the company that bears his name is owned and operated by those who wish to maintain his legacy. And that “emergency wine tasting” trip that I took out to CA a while back was to check in with remaining stock of Thackrey’s Library wines, where they have remained temperature controlled since bottling. And the fruits of that trip and deal that followed are coming to fruition as I type.
I still don’t have the entire story or timeline, but this I know for certain: Sean is no longer the hands on winemaker, but remains consulting winemaker for the company that bears his name. He did not make Pleiades XXVIII, which is currently widely available (though not here), and he may have well put juice in barrel, but did not finish or bottle the current releases of Orion ’16 or Andromeda ’16. It seems that Sean’s long time #2 is now the head winemaker. While these wines are not bad- like a mediocre Radiohead record, which is still better than most other’s best stuff- the final product is not what it once was. Nothing against the new crew, but the hands and intentions of a genius are not replicable, and I consider this body of work to be closed, and as a whole, amongst the greatest achievement(s) ever put in bottle, and sealed with porous cork.
We just received a full pallet- 56 cases- from CA of wine from Sean’s library collection, and at this moment, I am fairly certain that we have the largest and widest collection of Sean Thackrey wines on the planet, aside from perhaps what he is still hoarding himself. But not even I can drink this much wine, and it also represents one of the largest single expenditures of my no-longer-so-young life, so we’ll be offering many of these rarities to you at lower rates than what remains will sell for here on the shelves at Free Range Wine & Spirits.
The first offer is for 2 versions of vertical packs of Thackrey’s unique and ever evolving cosmic kitchen sink blend, the non-vintage Pleiades. To the best of my knowledge only one or two of these wines are available anywhere else in the world, and certainly nobody else has ever offered such a vertical collection with perfect provenance, besides Sean himself, many years ago.
In all seriousness, please do not share the link below, as we really only care about the needs of those of you who receive and read these notes (to whom I am eternally grateful).
And these are the packs on offer:
Thackrey Pleiades 3-pack:
1 bottles each XVIII, XIX, and XX
@ $99
Thackrey Pleiades 7-pack:
1 bottle each XVIII, XIX, XX, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI
@ $229
(!) Click here for the hidden sale page (!)
** We are limiting purchase to 1 of each pack per customer. **
*** Please do not share this link! ***
Most sincerely,
Jack
Proprietor
Free Range Wine & Spirits
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