Cheap wines that are SCARY cheap but super surprising
The Story The Trader Joe’s Reserve North Coast Brut is a Trader Joe’s $9.99 non-vintage exclusive and is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. The North Coast AVA consists of Sonoma, Napa, Lake, Mendocino, along with the lesser-known Marin and Solano AVAs. This Bubbly is made for Trader Joe’s by Rack and Riddle, a company…
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The Story The Tempest Bay Carneros Chardonnay 2018 is a $7.99 Trader Joe’s wine sourced from grapes grown on the Napa side of Carneros, the Carneros AVA is half in Sonoma and half in Napa. The Carneros AVA is located a good distance from the Pacific Ocean, but its southern border is the San Pablo Bay (the bay…
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The Story The Sienna Glen Chardonnay 2018 is a $6.99 ALDI exclusive sourced from grapes from more than one California grape growing AVA. This is one of those wines where there isn’t much to say. It is a contracted store brand, they rarely give technical details on their wines. The winery that produced the wine,…
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The Story The Pure Bred Lodi Old Vine Zinfandel 2017 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s (maybe exclusive). The reason I say maybe is this wine seems to be a close-out wine of some sort. The listed winery on the back of the label, West Coast Wine Group, Lodi, California, no longer has a website. Their URL,…
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The Story The Flora and Stone Gewürztraminer is a non-vintage dated $4.99 ALDI exclusive wine sourced from vineyards in Monterey County AVA in the Central Coast AVA of California. Normally, $4.99, non-vintage, and a store brand would be a cause for concern, but I did a little digging and there is more to this wine than…
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The Story The Castle Rock Mendocino Pinot Noir 2017 is an inexpensive Pinot Noir, I found it for $7.99 at Costco that should provide a solid value. Castle Rock is an interesting wine company, they have been around for 25 years and have a unique business model. They own no vineyards, all their grapes come from…
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The Story The Saint-Hilaire Brut 2017 is a blend of 90% Mauzac, 5% Chardonnay, and 5% Chenin Blanc sourced from grapes farmed in the Limoux area of the Languedoc in Southwest France. The Sparkling wine of Limoux is 100 years older than the Bubbly of Champagne. Saint-Hilaire is the Abbey were history first records monks producing…
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The Story The Stick Figure Red Blend 2016 is a Trader Joe’s $8.99 exclusive sourced from a selection of cool climate and warm weather vineyards in the Central Coast AVA of California. As per usual, Trader Joe’s does not offer technical information for the Stick Figure Red, so let’s see what we can figure out on…
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The Story The Fetzer Sundial Chardonnay 2018 is sourced from sustainably farmed vineyards in more than one California grape-growing AVAs. Fetzer was founded in 1968 and is a Certified B Corp, which is a designation given to companies that are sustainably and ethically managed, others are Patagonia and Ben and Jerry’s. The Sundial Chardonnay sells over…
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The Story The Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Russian River Pinot Noir 2018 is a $7.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. There have been other Trader Joe’s Reserve Pinot Noirs over the years, the regular Reserve and Grand Reserve wines tend to have Lot #’s to differentiate them, I believe the Petit designation indicates that there is a limited…
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The Story The Delicious Monster White Blend 2019 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s import wine, a blend of 60% Chenin Blanc, 20% Muscat, and 20% Chardonnay from McGregor Winery vineyards in South Africa. McGregor Winery is a co-op of 33 farmers who have banded together to produce wines in the foothills of the mountains in…
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The Story The Moon Willow Riesling 2018 os a $6.49 ALDI exclusive sourced from sustainably farmed vineyards in the Monterey AVA of California’s Central Coast AVA. ALDI virtually never gives out technical information about their wines, so who, how, and where will be a mystery. But at this price point taking a chance isn’t too big…
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The Story The Dearly Beloved I Thee Red 2016 is a kitchen sink blend, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Petite Sirah sourced from vineyards in the Central Coast AVA of California. Trader Joe’s sells this blend for $7.99 and the Dearly Beloved website shows they produce 2 Red blends and a Chardonnay…
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The Story The Moon X Black Pinot Noir 2017 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s wine, but I don’t think it is a TJ’s exclusive a website from New York sells it online for $9.99. The 2016 vintage of the Moon X Black Pinot was the #1 page on CheapWineFinder for about a year and a…
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The Story The Lindenman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay 2018 is one of CheapWineFinder’s perennial favorites it is an amazingly inexpensive Chardonnay (this time we found it on sale for $2.99, Binny’s Chicago) that delivers year after year. Sourced from multiple vineyards in Southeast Australia, Lindeman’s is no longer an operating winery, it is a brand. A large…
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The Story The Time Waits For No One Monastrell 2017 is 100% Monastrell (Mourvedre in France) produced by Finca Bacara (Finca translates to farm or vineyard) in the Jumilla DO of southeastern Spain. This wine is designated a DOP wine which is Spain’s highest wine category and Monastrell is the #1 Red grape in Jumilla accounting…
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The Story The Kirkland Asolo Prosecco DOCG Extra Dry is a $6.99 Costco import exclusive sourced from grapes farmed around the town of Asolo in the center of the Prosecco region in Veneto, Italy. In California, the wine grape growing regions comprise of unique territories known as AVA’s, such as Paso Robles, Sonoma, Dry Creek, etc.,…
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The Story The Violet House Central Coast Red Blend 2017 is an $8.99 ALDI exclusive wine. And that is about all I know about this wine, there is no mention on the web and ALDI doesn’t say a thing. The back label says this is a non-traditional blend and a 2017 vintage is decent age…
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The Story The Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Russian River Chardonnay 2018 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. And this is an unexpected Chardonnay, the Fearless Flyer didn’t have much of anything interesting to say and the front label is the usual Tj’s exclusive label. But the back label tells that these grapes came from a…
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The Story The Kirkland Ti Point Sauvignon Blanc 2018 seems to be a $6.99 Costco exclusive sourced from grapes grown in the Marlborough region of New Zealand’s South Island. Ti Point Vineyards produced and bottled this Sauv Blanc (that technically means they made at least 75% of the wine) and they are a winery that started…
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The Story The Crusher Petite Sirah is 82% Petite Sirah and then smaller percentages of Syrah, Tempranillo, Malbec, Merlot, and Zinfandel sourced mainly from 2 vineyards, one in the Clarksburg AVA and another in the Lodi AVA, both areas have good growing conditions for Petite Sirah. The Crusher line of wines is one of Don Sebastiani and…
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The Story The Domaine de La Noblaie Chinon Goutte de Rose’ 2018 is a Rose’ of Cabernet Franc sourced from 2 Estate hillside vineyards in the Chinon district of the Loire Valley in west-central France. The vineyards have been certified organic since 2005 and Domaine de La Noblaie has been worked by the family for four…
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The Story The Caretaker Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir 2017 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive produced for TJ’s by the Central Coast Wine Warehouse. They are a full-service wine company that makes contract wine and brand wine, is a certified sustainable facility and own some of the finest vineyards in the Central Coast AVA….
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The Story The Garnacha de Fuego 2018 is an old vine (between 39 and 79 years old) Garnacha sourced from mountainside vineyards in the Calatayud district of the Aragon DO in northeast Spain. This is one of Jorge Ordóñez Selections line of imported wines, he is a major importer of Spanish wines and his wines…
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The Story The St. Somewhere AlexanderValley Chardonnay 2018 is a $7.99 Trader Joe’s single-vineyard exclusive. Trader Joe’s seems to use the St. Somewhere label when a winery has excess wine to sell. The last time they used the name was an Oregon Pinot Noir that accidentally has 1.5% of California Pinot Noir blended in, their mistake…
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