By now, you’ve seen the name Peter Wellington around here more than once. Between his wines and his bi-weekly blog posts for Wine.Woot, you probably think you know what to expect. Ho-hum, another revealing diary entry from an articulate veteran winemaker. Yeah, yeah, another masterpiece of winemaking from his Sonoma Valley winery. So far, so Wellington.

Well, forget all that. Because this week, one of these four bottles will be a complete mystery.

This three-pack-plus-one is your ticket into the Wine.Woot Mystery Wine Challenge. You’ll receive one mystery bottle for each three-pack you buy. It’s up to you to taste it, identify it, and tell us about it. You can submit your guess on a web entry form that we’ll roll out on August 29th. We can’t award any prizes, except the widespread recognition of your superiority. But isn’t that enough? There are more details in our Challenge announcement blog post.

But don’t get so carried away by the game that you overlook the three correctly-labeled bottles in this deal. The Wellington Vineyards 2004 Sonoma Valley Merlot belongs to one of Sonoma’s best recent vintages. It offers berry and cherry aromas, along with brown sugar, brown spice, and everything nice. The fruit is just ripe enough. The entry is just full and supple enough. A clean, dry finish sticks around just long enough. Dry, fruity, and blanaced, the 2004 Zinfandel is a ripe, concentrated take on Zin, with classic flavors of briar, blackberry, and black pepper. Not too much sugar to get in the way, either. Seven different vineyards contributed to the Wellington 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma County, yielding up a complex, elegant, spicy Cab with shades of black pepper, truffle, cinnamon, and vanilla. The only challenge presented by these wines is to stop drinking them.

So best of luck in the Challenge, should you dare to test your tastebuds. But since you’ll have this Peter Wellington Three-Pack anyway, you’ll kinda have already won.

Entries will be accepted beginning August 29, 2008. To submit an entry, go to the web form to be announced later and enter your Woot username, the color of the sticker on the back label of your mystery bottle, and your varietal guess into the appropriate fields. Those identifying the correct varietal will be lavishly recognized on this web site as only Wine.Woot can. Only contestants who buy the Peter Wellington Three-Pack will be eligible to be announced as winners. No prizes will be awarded.

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