Sobon Estates Old Vine Amador County Zinfandel 2019-A Delicious Value Zin A tasty Zinfandel from the gold rush country! California is a treasure trove of excellent Zinfandel regions. Lodi, Sonoma, Central Coast, Napa, and Amador County offer excellent and individual takes on ZInfandel wine. I say, explore them all. Check out www.cheapwinefinder and listen to…
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The Sobon Estates Old Vine Amador County Zinfandel 2019 is sourced from estate vineyards in the Amador County AVA, east of Napa, north, and east of Lodi, and east of Sacramento, California. Amador County is one of the oldest wine regions in California. The Sobon family started Shenandoah Vineyards in 1977 and 1989 purchased the…
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Vigilance Red Hills AVA Sauvignon Blanc 2020-An Excellent California Sauv Blanc Red Hills AVA is inside the Lake County AVA just north of Napa. For years they sold their grapes to other wineries. Today, excellent wineries are making terrific wine in Lake County. Vigilance is one of the brands from Shannon Ridge, a family-owned winery…
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The Vigilance Red Hills AVA Sauvignon Blanc 2020 is one of the brands from Shannon Ridge winery located in the Lake County AVA north of Napa. This Sauv Blanc is sourced from estate vineyards in the Red Hills sub-AVA, situated on the southern end of Clear Lake. The vineyards are situated in the foothills of…
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Trader Joe's Platinum Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2020-Time To Look For Bargains. This Pinot Noir is a little too hot for my tastes, 14.5% alcohol. But I think it is intended for the Restaraunt crowd, and some high alcohol content will not be noticeable when paired with food. I am a Pinot Noir…
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The Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2020 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. I am not sure about the difference between a Platinum Reserve, a Diamond Reserve, and the good old Grand Reserve Trader Joe’s wines. But they do have a track record of being solid bang-for-the-buck wine. The Santa Lucia…
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Dancing Flame Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2019-$6.99 From Aldi 2022 has us back on the cheap wine beat. This is a seven-buck Cab Sauv from Chile. I got used to the fancy but cheap Cabernet Sauvignon I drank in December 2021, so I was not entirely taken by this Cab. But it is a pretty reasonable…
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The Dancing Flame Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is an Aldi $6.99 import exclusive. Vina Luis Felipe Edwards produced this wine, a winery founded in Chile in 1976, and sourced from grapes grown in the Colchagua Valley. We first reviewed the 2012 vintage back in 2014, that wine sold for $4.99. The Dancing Flame name refers…
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Trader Joe's Diamond Reserve Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2020-$20 And Worth Every Penny Twenty buck Trader Joe's wine, what is this world coming to? There is a story about this wine that should be very interesting for all value-priced wine drinkers. Since I just wrote the story and review on www.cheapwinefinder.com and recorded a…
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The Trader Joe’s Diamond Reserve Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $19.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. The Diamond Reserve wines are their double-secret super rare wines; if you are interested, do not wait to try one because when they are gone, they are gone forever. Twenty bucks are beyond the usual price range for…
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Meiomi California Pinot Noir NV-The New Meiomi Meiomi Pinot Noir is a hugely successful wine, with more than 7,000,000 bottles sold a year. Constellation Brands bought this wine in 2015, and there have been changes made to this Pinot Noir. Is it still what you know and expect? Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and listen to the…
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The Meiomi California Pinot Noir NV is a very popular wine. In 2015, Constellation Brands purchased the Meiomi brand from Joe Wagner of the Wagner family of Caymus fame for $315,000,000. At the time, Meiomi was selling 600,000 cases of Pinot Noir per year, that is, over 7 million bottles. From what I have read,…
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Argyle Willamette Valley Brut 2017-Champagne Quality At Half The Price It is December 2021, and Champagne is in short supply; instead of Bubbly sales, Champagne prices are higher. What to do, what to do, what to do. Well, where do they grow excellent Chardonnay and Pinot Noir? Why Willamette Valley, of course! So, does a…
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The Argyle Willamette Valley Brut 2017 is a vintage-dated small-batch estate-grown Sparkling wine made in the Champagne style. Argyle was founded in 1987 and produced exceptional Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Reisling, and Sparkling wines. This Bubbly consists of 55% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, and 15% Pinot Meunier. The Chardonnay was sourced from the Knudsen Vineyard in…
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Hwy 5 Pinot Noir 2020-Aldi $5 Party Wine Ok, so you think five dollars is too cheap for wine. In Europe, where they drink wine with the meal, they seldom spend more than two or three Euros on a wine. 2 or 3 Euros equals $5. And Aldi, Trader Joe's, and Costco wines are typically…
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The Hwy 5 Pinot Noir 2020 is a $5 Aldi exclusive sourced from vineyards in California. Aldi owns the trademark for the brand name, but E & J Gallo made the wine. Neither Aldi nor Gallo offers any production information concerning this wine. I suspect if they told us the production details, we would not…
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Trader Joe's Reserve Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon 2019-$25 for $9.99? My cousin's next-door neighbor's uncle has a friend who read on the internet that this is a restaurant wine of note that because of Covid in 2020 and 2021 didn't sell and, with a new vintage coming, had to be sold off. And Trader Joe's…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive, Cabernet Sauvignon blended with smaller amounts of Petit Verdot and Syrah sourced from vineyards (or vineyard?) in Sonoma County in Northern California. I was going to do my usual “what is this wine” thing and deduce what this wine is…
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Trader Joe's Platinum Reserve Sonoma Brut-Worth The Extra Five Bucks? CWF reviewed the Trader Joe's Reserve North Coast Brut Bubbly at $9.99, and we wondered if the Sonoma County version could be worth $5 more. That extra five bucks put it in competition with the California version of elite French Champagne House Bubbly, like Chandon,…
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The Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Sonoma Brut 2021 Edition is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. We reviewed this Sparkling wine about one year ago, and I wanted to revisit this Bubbly since we recently enjoyed Trader Joe’s North Coast Brut, which sold for five dollars less at $9.99. Is the Sonoma Brut worth 33% more?…
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The Ronan By Clinet Bordeaux Merlot 2016 is 100% Merlot sourced from estates near Chateau Clinet, located in the premier section of Pomerol in the Bordeaux region of France. Chateau Clinet Bordeaux wines sell in the $150 to $350 range, and I found this wine for $8.99. While the grapes used did not come from…
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Ronan By Clinet Bordeaux Merlot 2016-Expensive Merlot for $10 Chateau Clinet is THE Pomerol estate. Ronan is the name of their managing director. Pomerol does Merlot. This is 100% Merlot, not from vineyards in Pomerol, but made by the same team that makes the $150 to $350 wines. And I found it for $8.99; this…
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The Mud House Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019 is a reasonably priced Pinot Noir from New Zealand. Central Otago is located in the southern part of New Zealand’s South Island. Marlborough, where most of the Sauvignon Blanc is produced, is on the northern tip of South Island. This Pinot Noir is sourced from a single…
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Mud House Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019-NZ Isn't Just Sauvignon Blanc Excellent Affordable Pinot Noir is a joy, and that is precisely what New Zealand Pinot Noir offers. I found this single-vineyard Central Otago Pinot for $15, and it is a real bargain. Central Otago is on the southern half of New Zealand's South Island,…
Read MoreCheapwinefinder Drinks The Aldi 7 Days of New Years Import Bubbly Collection 2021 Chateau Quake and Domaine Dave sample 7 Aldi imported Bubbly. We liked some better than others but enjoyed giving them all a try. It turns out that cheap Aldi imported Bubbly can be very good. Check out the podcast and find out…
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