(and the cheap WHITES we’re diggin’ on lately)
The Sainte Celine Chablis 2022 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s import wine. It is produced for trader Joe’s by Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard a noted Chablis producer (since 1973) who has made some of the first organic and bio-dynamic wines in Chablis and Burgundy. Chablis is the northernmost growing region in Burgundy and Champagne is north…
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The Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve Santa Barbara Chardonnay 2021 is 100% Chardonnay sourced from sustainably farmed Kendal Jackson Estate vineyards in Santa Barbara County, The Santa Maria County AVA (the northern boundary of the Santa Barbara AVA and Monterey County. To show Santa Barbara on the label 75% of the grapes have to be grown…
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The Don’t Mind If I Do Pinot Grigio 2022 is Vegan-friendly. You might ask how can something made from fruit not be ok with vegans? It is the fining process, fining is where the solids, grape skin residue and spent yeast are removed from the wine after aging and before bottling. They have traditionally used…
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The Codorniu Limited Edition Cava Brut Reserva is a Spanish Sparkling wine I found on sale for $8.99. Codorniu is the oldest winery in Spain with a history going back to 1551. This was way before Cava wines very started. In 1872 Josep Raventos brought the Champagne Sparkling wine methods to Spain and Cava was…
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The 19 Crimes Snoop Dogg Cali Blanc 2021 is California Sauvignon Blanc, Cali Blanc is simply Snoop’s name for it. There is a history of calling this grape something other than Sauvignon Blanc. In the 1960s Robert Mondavi tried selling high-end Sauv Blanc and nobody was buying. In those days Sauvignon Blanc was the cheap…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Santa Barbara County Chardonnay 2021 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. The back label says it was made by Ashford Court who also made Trader Joe’s perennial favorite, Cotillion Pinot Noir. The actual producer of Cotillion is Plata Wine Partners of Napa, California. You may have not heard of Plata Wine…
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The Vino Columbia Valley Pinot Grigio 2020 is a wine that should be found for around $10, I saw prices as high as $13 and I found it for $8.99. It is a brand from Charles Smith/House of Smith Wines. The full name of this wine is Vino CasaSmith and these wines are Italian varietals…
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The Woodleaf Ranch Russian River Chardonnay 2020 is a $9.99 Aldi exclusive. I checked the California wine labeling website COLA and it showed that Rack and Riddle cellared and bottled this Chardonnay. Cellared and bottled means just that, they aged the wine for a certain amount of time and bottled it, but the named producer…
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The Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Organic California Chardonnay 2022 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. It is produced for Trader Joe’s, or at least “vinted and bottled by”, ASV Wines. ASV Wines is a family-owned winery in business since 1981 and they own 1,500 acres of vineyards. Vinted and bottled by does not indicate that…
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The Charme de Loire Sauvignon Blanc 2021 is a wine from Domaine Jean-Marie Reverdy and Fils, a 4th generation family wine estate located near the town of Sancerre in the Loire Valley of France. Their estate wines are Sancerre (the leading Sauvignon Blanc growing area in the Loire Valley). The Charme de Loire Sauvignon Blanc…
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The Tuatea Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2022 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s wine. This wine is imported to the US by WX Imports. It seems this wine sells in places where there is no Trader Joe’s for $13.99. CWF reviewed the 2017 vintage Tuatea and the Fearless Flyer back then mentioned his wine had some oak…
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The Peaks And Tides Sonoma Coast Chardonnay 2021 is a $9.99 Aldi exclusive. The Peaks and Tides name is owned by Aldi, but the back label says it was vinted and bottled by a wine company in Geyserville, California. A quick check of the web showed this wine is credited to Delicato Family Vineyards who…
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The Kim Crawford Hawke’s Bay Rosé 2021 is 70% Merlot and 30% Sauvignon Blanc sourced from vineyards in the Hawke’s Bay region of New Zealand’s North Island. Kim Crawford has been a wine brand since 1996 and was started in Marlborough on New Zealand’s South Island. The majority of the wines Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot…
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The Spy Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2022 sells at Costco for $13.89, on the web for an average of $17, and for $21 on the Spy Valley website. Spy Valley is a family-owned winery founded in the 1990s in the Waihopai Valley in Marlborough of New Zealand’s South Island. This is an extremely rural, isolated location and…
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The Mumm Napa Brut Rosé is a blend of 80% Pinot Noir and 20% Chardonnay sourced from up to 50 growers in Napa County. GH Mumm is a Champagne House founded in France in 1827. Mumm Napa was established in the late 1970s. The Mumm Napa Brut Rosé comes from almost 200 years of Champagne-making…
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The Fess Parker Santa Barbara Chardonnay 2021 sells for $13.89 at Costco and an average of $17 elsewhere, though the prices vary greatly. The grapes were sourced from 7 high-end vineyards situated throughout Santa Barbara County. Santa Barbara County is located about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, which should be too warm to grow…
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The Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Paso Robles Chardonnay 2021 Is a $7.99 limited exclusive wine. Usually, Trader Joe’s wine has no production notes, but this wine is featured in the Fearless Flyer so we have a few things to go on. To make a short story even shorter, Trader Joe’s says that a wine partner…
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The Joel Gott California Sauvignon Blanc 2021 is sourced from vineyards in Sonoma, Lake County, Lodi, Monterey, and Santa Barbara AVAs. Joel Gott Wines was founded in 1996 and specialized in wine from California, Washington, and California. The Joel Gott California Sauvignon Blanc 2021 is #5 on Wine Spectators’ list of top ten value wines…
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The High Guard Chardonnay 2021 Trader Joe’s is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. It is produced for them by a family-owned winery located in Napa Valley, though the grapes are from California. A wine produced from grapes grown in California must show California as the place of origin f the grapes are not from one…
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The Purple Moon Chardonnay 2020 Trader Joe’s is a $3.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. This wine is one of TJ’s perennial wines we first reviewed the 2011 vintage, it was $3.99 9 years ago. How they keep the price the same after all these years is a small miracle. This wine along with other wines in…
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The Josh Cellars Pinot Grigio 2021 is $11.99 (Target) from the negociant side of Joseph Carr Wines. Joseph Carr’s winery is located in Napa, a negociant (Josh Cellars) owns no winery and no vineyards. They lease winery space from existing wineries and buy grapes or juice from wineries. The bottle says this wine was blended…
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The Kirkland Champagne Brut-2022 is a $19.99 Costco exclusive produced for them by Manuel Janisson of the Verzenay region in Champagne, France. This Champagne House has roots dating back to the 1920s. This is real Champagne do not let the low price fool you. There are over 2,100 Champagne Houses making Bubbly in the Champagne…
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The Lustre American Sparkling Wine-Aldi is $13.99 Aldi Bubbly I can’t say that this Sparkling wine is exclusive to Aldi since it seems to be produced by Gruet, headquarter in New Mexico. In checking the California COLA registry database, they approve wine labels, I found that Precept-Wine/Gruet made the Lustre American Sparkling Wine-Aldi. Precept is…
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Trader Joe’s French Blanc de Blanc and Brut Rosé both Trader Joe’s exclusive $6.99 import Sparkling wines. The Fearless Flyer indicates that these are proprietary blends from the South of France near the Mediterranean Sea. These French Sparkling wines probably do not include Chardonnay or Pinot Noir the mainstays of Champagne Sparkling wines. It is…
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The Lindquist Family Bien Nacido Chardonnay 2020 is sourced from a single block (Block L) of the famed Bien Nacido Vineyard located inside the Santa Maria AVA which is part of the Santa Barbara AVA in California’s Central Coast AVA. Bien Nacido Vineyard has been called one of the best 5 vineyards in California, the…
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