The Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Organic Chardonnay is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive sourced from certified organic grapes grown in more than one California grape growing AVA. This Chardonnay is produced for Trader Joe’s by ASV Wines a custom winemaking company who own their own vineyards. Neither Trader Joe’s or ASV Wines offer any information on the making of this wine, but I can’t complain when I am getting an organic California Chardonnay for half the price that Whole Foods sells one bunch of organic table grapes. The alcohol content is 13%.
The color is a glistening wheat yellow. The nose is pineapple, apricot, peach, a little pink grapefruit and a whiff of flower garden. A medium bodied Chardonnay with a nice balanced natural fresh fruit flavors and tart citrus. It tastes of lemon and peach mixed together, then a touch of lime followed by apricot. The wine transitions to green apple and a not so tart jolt of grapefruit. The acidity will have you smacking your lips, it does not go overboard, it adds a nice texture and will help cleanse the palate when paired with, say Firecracker shrimp or pecan encrusted chicken caesar salad. The finish is fuller and longer than you have any reason to expect from a $5.99 organic Chardonnay.
The Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Organic Chardonnay (it is either unoaked or very little oak was used) is a very solid, easy to drink, will go well with food, really kind of tasty, how come organic grapes are so cheap when made into wine and cost so much when they didn’t do anything to them in the store, remarkably inexpensive wine. Don’t think of it as a $5.99 wine, there is still a certain stigma attached to super inexpensive wines, its like, “It is so cheap, it can’t really be any good”. But like we have been telling you all along, the correlation between the price of wine and how much fun it is to drink, is all in inexpensive wines favor.
