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Well, hey there, it's uh Domain Dave again, cheapwinefinter.com, doing what we do. We're talking about value priced wines, bargains, hopefully, or at least um worth the money. Today we've got one from Costco, which is $7.99, but it's actually on the interwebs, it's probably closer to 15 and sometimes up. It's the Renwood Amador County Old Vine Zimpendale 2023, and there's a weird story here to tell. It's kind of a story about the current wine industry. First of all, Amador County is east of Napa, north of and east of Lodi, you know, around Sacramento, in the Gold Rush territory. This is the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. This is where uh there's gold in them there hills. These are those hills. There are a bunch up there of vineyards that were planted over 100 years old and sometimes 150 years old. They're old. I'm gonna take a sip of this one. Most of the vineyards are in the foothills at least a thousand feet up, maybe more. Why old vine? Well, old vine, and and usually old vine, if you read it on a uh on a label for California wine, anybody can say it's old vine. It could be vines that are planted last week. There's no law. But in Ambadar County, if it they say it's over 100 years old, it probably will be over 100 years old. And why that's an important uh distinction is grapes that struggle are just to survive. And older vines that they're all gnarly, that all the channels that brought the nutrients to them died out, and new ones had to be gone. You get more intensity, you get more complexity, you get all the things that people treasure in a grape for wine. Now, if you're doing a uh Concord grape to make a jam, well, you want that to be happy and sassy. You don't want that to have a problem, you want that to be irrigated, you you want that to be uh all the nutrients it needs is because that's sweet and juicy, and you don't want it that way. So there you go. Old vines make a really good vineyard because it struggles, and even if it was never in the exactly the best place on the planet, after a hundred years, these vines can go one-on-one with some of the best vineyards in the world just because of how tough it is for them to survive, and that's a good thing. Now, I'm gonna talk about Renwood. Renwood was a family-owned winery, I think it was founded in 1993, and they got caught up in that um economic downturn. Was it the subprime thing of 2008? They went bankrupt. Uh, they had to fire their employees, they didn't they didn't they didn't pay any of their suppliers, and um a large wine group from South America bought it, you know, at a bargain price actually, and they hired back all the employees, they paid all their suppliers, they did the right thing, and they were doing it for a while. They sent one of their big chats to keep track of everything, and this was a winery with vineyards and taste room, and then in 2019, rumbauer, rumbauer of nap. You know, the uh rumbauer Chardonnay is world famous. Uh, it's a style unto its own. But they've been having uh they've had vineyards in the Sierra Nevadas in um Amador County, so they bought the winery, the tasting room, and one of the vineyards. I think I'm going off what I'm reading, so that's what I believe it to be. And the original, I mean, the people of the South American wine group now held the brand in one vineyard. And I do believe there's a state uh Ziffendel, but this ain't it. This is bought from different uh vineyards in the area, which is they're good vineyards, it's not a bad thing. So just what Renwood is nowadays is I don't know. I mean, I don't know where they make their wines. I I imagine some of their grapes come from the vineyard, but um Rombar owns most of what they used to be, the rest is owned by the South American group. So I don't know what their future is. If you go to the Amador County Wine Association, they're not listed there anymore. This happens to a lot of wineries. Um upscale, downscale in the middle. Wineries you used to know from 20 years ago, they don't own their own vineyards anymore, they don't own their own facilities anymore. Somebody bought them out, didn't need the didn't need the winery capacity, so they sold the winery. Um they had their own vineyards, they didn't, and they had they had their own suppliers, they didn't need the ones they had, and they had their own winemakers, and it's up and down the line. You'd be surprised how many wineries ain't what they used to be. Not that they're bad, I'm not saying they're bad. This Renwood uh wine still does well, and Ryan wine reviewers, big name, but wine reviewers still like it. But it's hard to know who's who. And sometimes, you know, and it happens. I mean, the people who make your favorite uh potato chips from 10 years ago probably aren't the same ones. I mean, it's brands change and they change how they make them. It's just everywhere, and and people are going, well, why don't they like well you keep on changing things and don't tell anybody. So that's wine. So here's this wine that used to know what you're getting, now you don't know. What you're getting is a really good wine. And uh uh $7.99 at Casco can't beat it. I mean, it's just a really good one. I I I have been not impressed with the Zimpanels lately. It was the very first red wine that I that ever caught my attention. It was one of my favorites, and you know, last two years, it's been uh that's nice, you know. So um this is one that caught my attention. And at $7.99, it's a huge bargain. It's sweet, it's not sweet, it's fruit forward. Um got enough spices and got enough interesting things going on. Easy to drink, but still complicated and satisfying. Um there you go. I've got a um Oregon Pinot Gris. There's a weird story about Pinot Gris in Oregon. We'll talk about that in a couple days. A lot of y'all keep it cheap. Uh, the run uh Runwood Amador County Old Vinesville 2023. You can find it in sale, and definitely you can find it at Costco. It's a good red wine, especially when it's gonna start cooling off. It's gonna be a nice fall one. A lot of y'all keep it cheap domain behavior.