Aubert Wines — Attraction in Calistoga

I previously purchased a number of pinots and chardonnays from them. The pinots were pretty good, however, their heavy use of oak and full malolactic fermentation turned their chardonnays into cougar juice, which was not my style. When the chardonnay allocations came out, I gave them a heads up that I would be skipping and going heavy on the pinots later in the year. They (or was it just Philip Gift, the Estate Director) initially were flabbergasted that someone would actually pass on their offer, but they did say that would be fine, but now, I've come to see that they deactivated my account and will no longer offer me anymore Pinots. HAHAHAHAHA. LOL. What a bunch of two face cowards. Oh well. Perhaps, it was a blessing in disguise as I've since found a lot of other Pinot producers that do as good and even more elegant wines. Also, if I wanted, a lot of Aubert bottles can be found on winebid.com for a lot LESS than their club price, which says something about true demand (or over supply) for their stuff. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as more funds can be allocated to better producers with actual customer service. In any case, I'd still love to meet Mark Aubert one day, or...

Bad business ethics. They denied to take responsibility for the corked wine.

Ordered 9 bottles from them. The wines were kept in great condition in the wine fridge. I later found one of the bottle to be heavily corked. (Disclaimer: I'm WSET certified, drank their Pinot, and also a member of several other Sonoma/RRV producers [WS, KB, Littoria], so I can at least tell when the wine was badly corked as this one.

Since I coravined the wine, I offered to bring the bottle back, but the winery asked me to just send the cork back to do the 'analysis'. After several days, the result came out negative. Then they denied all the responsibility claiming the wine was not corked, and I just need to decant the wine 😂(also, this was many days passed after they asked for the cork). Well, if they were right, then it means their wine supposed to taste like a wet muddy dog.

Either ways, there are many great Char/Pinot producers in the region, that care about their customer. Save yourself...

Had a lovely visit here at the recommendation of a prominent wine collector. We were fortunate to be able to get on the mailing list and my husband and I have been enjoying the Aubert Chardonnays and Pinot for several years now. Truly special wine! Our friends love nothing more than when we show up at their homes with...