The Trader Joe’s Reserve North Coast Meritage 2020 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive Red blend. According to the Fearless Flyer, the blend is Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petit Verdot, the only Bordeaux-approved grape missing is Malbec. A Meritage Red blend, which rhymes with heritage, is a wine that is based on the…
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The Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Cabernet 2020 is 65% Shiraz and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from vineyards in Australia. Usually, the vineyard location for Australian wine is Southeastern Australia or South Australia, both very large regions, but this wine has grapes that could have come from anywhere. That is not surprising since their website said over…
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The Outlander Meritage Red 2019 is a $7.99 Aldi exclusive sourced from vineyards in Paso Robles, California. This wine was produced by Coppola Winery from Sonoma California and was purchased the last year by Delicato Family Vineyards, headquartered in Lodi. A Meritage Red blend is a California wine that uses the approved grapes of the…
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The Daou Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is part of the Discovery series of wine from Daou Vineyards of Paso Robles California. Daou is one of the finest wineries in Paso Robles known for their Bordeaux-inspired wines and they are Cabernet Sauvignon specialists. The Daou Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is made by the same…
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The Velvet Moon Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive sourced from grapes farmed in California. The wine is made for Trader Joe’s by a large family-owned winery based in Lodi and Napa. They have extensive vineyards in Lodi, Monterey, Sonoma, and other locations. These are wines available each year, here is a…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 Lot 225 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. This is a wine produced for Trader Joe’s by Precision Wine Company which makes custom wines and several of its own brands from Napa Valley grapes. The Alexander Valley is about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast along…
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The Josephine Pays D’Oc Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s import exclusive sourced from vineyards in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southwest France located between the Mediterranean Ocean and the Pyrenees and the Black Mountains. It is a region known for single-varietal wines, though blends are also allowed. The Josephine Pays D’Oc Cabernet Sauvignon…
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The Apothic Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Zinfandel, and 4% various Red grapes (according to SAQ, the Quebec Liquor Authority). The Apothic line of wine is one of E & J Gallo’s many wine labels, they are the largest family-owned winery in the US. The Apothic Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 lists for $11.99…
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The Caretaker Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive produced for them by Miller Family Wine Company. The Caretaker brand has been available at Trader Joe’s since at least the 2009 vintage when CWF reviewed their Pinot Noir. In the past, the Caretaker wines had the Central Coast Wine Warehouse as the…
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The Union and Branch Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 are a $14.99 Aldi wine exclusive produced for them by a large family-owned wine estate located in the Monterey AVA of California. The $14.99 price point is a stretch for Aldi wine. They have an excellent $19.99 Champagne that they release every year for the holidays,…
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The Paso Dragon Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $7.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive sourced from grapes farmed in the Paso Robles AVA inside the larger Central Coast AVA. The Paso Dragon name comes from Lake Nacimiento, which shoreline does resemble a dragon. Check out the label for an artistic representation. I found a website that exports…
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The 14 Hands Hot To Trot Red Blend 2018 is a blend of 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 19% Syrah, 2% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot sourced from vineyards through the Columbia Valley AVA in Washington. The name 14 Hands refers to the wild horses that at one time roamed free in the area….
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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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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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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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The Ugly Sweater Red Blend 2021 Edition is $8.49 at Trader Joe’s. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Petite Sirah sourced from vineyards in Lodi, California. It is a non-vintage wine; Christmas 2022 may have a different grape blend. The information on the bottle is confusing; the back label says…
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The Maison Barboulot Cabernet Syrah 2020 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive wine in places where Trader Joe’s can sell wine. In New York, grocery stores can only sell beer, so this Red blend is $9.99 in New York. In Germany, the Maison Barboulot Cabernet Syrah 2020 is 9 Euros which equals about $10 or…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Wahluke Slope Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s wine, 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 7% Merlot sourced from the Wahluke Slope AVA in the south-central section of the Columbia Valley AVA of Washington. This wine was produced and bottled by (that indicates they made the wine) by CC Vineyards of…
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The Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. This is a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Petit Verdot sourced somewhere in Napa Valley. Trader Joe’s says, “This is a very, very, very (very) special wine that comes from one of the most prestigious wineries in Napa.”…
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The Franciscan Monterey Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 is a wine with a very particular story. The Franciscan winery was founded in the 1970s, started with humble beginnings, and rose to become a well-respected winery. Over the years, ownership has changed hands several times, and the last change is the subject of this story. Franciscan Estates is…
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The Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon 2019 is sourced from several California AVAs, but all the vineyards are located on hillsides. Hillsides are nothing new for wine vineyards; most grape-growing locations are river valleys or foothills of mountains. But, hillsides offer some unique advantages in farming grapes. Vines planted on the side of a hill or…
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The Substance Cs Cabernet Sauvignon 2018 is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from several vineyards in the Columbia Valley AVA of Washington. This is one of Charles Smith’s wines, now called House of Smith. They have some of the best technical notes for wines at any price point. They tell you which vineyards the grapes came…
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The format for this review is going to be different, we typically give our attention to one wine, but the Le Grand Verre 2020 is not about one individual bottle of wine. Instead, the name translates to “the big glass” and is a hand-picked line of single-serve bottles of boutique, small-batch French Estate wines. The…
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The African Hills Cape Town Sauvignon Rosé 2020 is a $6.99 ALDI import wine from the Cape Town growing region of South Africa. The Rosé is a blend of 93% Sauvignon Blanc and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon. Fun Wine Fact: Sauvignon Blanc is the genetic parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. Ok, here is a Rosé refresher. Rosé…
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The Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Diamond Mountain District Napa Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive; this is also Lot #92, which may be important in this series of wines. For the last six months, TraderJoe’s has offered a line of small-batch wines featuring grapes from premier Napa Valley sub-AVA’s. Are these wines…
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