Costco’s Bargain Pinot-Kirkland Signature Carneros Pinot Noir 2024

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Hey, Domain Dave here, cheapwinefinder.com with another uh value-priced wine um review like we always do. And uh I've been to Costco recently and we picked up the Kirkland signature Canaros Pinot Noir 2024. It's one of their perennial wines, they have it all the time. There's uh I left a link to the 2021 vintage. We reviewed that. We haven't touched it since 2021, and it's an $8.99 wine, $9 for a Canaros Pinot Noir, which is kind of uh kind of uh well, in terms of Trader Joe's has been doing it for around the same price, but typically speaking, since Canaros is part of the Napa Valley, and Pinot Noir is a premium grape, um, tends to be pricey. Um, but we'll get into that in a second. And $8.99 is a great price. Um, like a lot of uh Kirkman signature uh wines, Allison Crow is the winemaker, she's the vice president of winemaking for Plata Partners, they control 20,000 acres of sustainingly sustainably farmed. There we go. Uh vineyards in California. Uh you probably had their wines and didn't even know it. Um, and she is a talented winemaker. Um, so you got a good AVA and a talented winemaker and a cheap wine. So what can you ask for? Uh why is it $8.99? Well, um, with high-end wines, the vineyard used and the winemaker usually this this usually is involving a winery, a you know, rather than a brand. But this vineyard is famous, this winemaker's famous, and they only make so much wine, so it's gonna be very expensive because people are gonna want the wine from this those two stuff those two items. Here we've got it's from Canaros, uh, on the Napa side. Canaros is on both Sonoma and Napa side, just above the San Pablo Bay. So it's a Pinot Noir where very uh I've heard there's some places in the in the hills of Napa that can get away with Pinot Noir because you need cool climate, and here it's barely cool climate. It's 14.5 in the alcohol. Um but here we don't know too much about where the grapes came from. There are no bad vineyards in uh Ganaros. Uh most of the ever pretty much every vineyard has expensive wines coming from them. Uh 14.5 in the alcohol for a um Pinot Noir, which is a light-bodied wine, it's kind of a delicate wine. When it's at its best, it's a delicate wine. And 14.5 a little thick, if you ask me. Um, there are wines like Miyomy, which I don't really consider to be a Pinot Noir. I consider it more like a red blend because there's so much other grapes in there. Um and I like it as a red blend, but not as a Pinot Noir. And at 14.5, wine starts to get to that category. But if you like Miomi, then that's fine too. It's it's not like it, it's just a matter of preferences. I'm gonna take a sip here. It's a little bit hot, a little bit hot, but I after a few uh sips that will wear off. It's got a little bit um a little bit of body, but not too bad. I mean it it is a nicely well-controlled wine. I mean, it's a whole lot easier to make a really wonderful Pinot Noir at 12.5 or 13 than it is at 14, 14.5, because that alcohol will mask some flavors, and the whole thing about Pinot Noir, letting the flavors flow through when you get these sometimes crazy, funky flavors and and aromas coming out of it, which is one of the things. I mean, at first, a lot of times you have Pinot Noir for the first time, a good Pinot Noir, and it's like, what the what the heck is going on here? And then by the third one, you you have to have it. It's like, where is that? Where's that crazy stuff? I want it. It's just one of those wines that does that. I mean, a simple Pinot Noir is like wasting your time. You want it to be a little bit weird. Next one. It's smooth, uh, it's got this kind of exotic, rough-edged uh um spice that kind of uh gives a little, you know, little opposite of what the smooth round uh cherry uh grapes are. It's got like weird tastes like pencil lead and and it's also got uh plum and raspberry going on too. It's got on the nose, it's got like um crushed autumn leaves and you know black cherry and uh maybe a little minerality on it. If you can pick that up a little bit, and you know, some um herbs and stuff. It's that's a it's got a nice array of flavors. And at $8.99, you're picking up a good Canaros, a Canaros AVA Pinot Noir. And in the if you don't really know the different uh areas of California that does it, like Santa Barbara's got great Pinot Noir, you got some good uh Monterey, it's got a couple a bunch of good really um Pinot Noir AVAs, then you go to Sonoma Coast and Russian River, and then you get going to Canaros and just kind of getting the taste of all that's pretty much fun. So there you go, $8.99 Canaros AVA Pinot Noir from Casco. There's no reason not to pick it up if you want to uh you just want to sell a nice Pinot Noir that uh drinks above its price point, which Casco's known for. That's that's the way to go, and at nine bucks for a great AVA and a good uh really good winemaker, talented winemaker, and a cheap wine. You know, that's what cheap wine finders want. So, Adios Keep It Cheap. This is Domain Dave. I'll be talking to everybody. I've got a crazy Savillon Blanc coming from Spain. We'll do that in a couple of days. Adios, keep it cheap.