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0:03
Hey, domain Dave, cheapwinefindercom Another wine review podcast. We write them up on the CheapWineFindercom website three times a week Value price wines. This one is $7.99 from Trader Joe's. It's the Starpoint Yakima Valley Chardonnay 2023. $7.99, pretty good.
Speaker 1:
0:28
Yakima Valley is in the southern part of Columbia Valley and it's the first AVA in the Northwest, which means Washington and Oregon back in 1983. They almost produce a third of all the wines in Columbia Valley. There is an upper Yakima Valley and a lower Yakima Valley and there's four different sub-AVAs inside of there and every time there is a sub-AVA there's a region inside there that has something unique about it that makes it stand out from the rest. But this is just what's labeled, just a Yakima Valley. The thing about that, especially with these inexpensive wines they might have got the grapes from a single vineyard you don't know that Maybe, maybe not in a sub-ABA, but they don't have to put that on there and they might not want to put that on there because that vineyard doesn't want to know that their $40 wines has grapes from from um $8 wine, but it's from Yakima Valley, which is a really good place, um, in the Columbia Valley in Washington state. It's cooler, uh, than the rest of the Columbia Valley and the alcohol content for this one is 12.4 and the warmer it gets, the higher the alcohol comes. So it looks like it's one of the cooler areas, maybe the upper region or I don't know, maybe the lower region, I don't know. I'm going to take a sip. It's an un-oaked Chardonnay, but it's still nicely rounded. I prefer my Chardonnays to have a little bit of oak and some malolactic fermentation. This one doesn't have that and it tastes really good. This thing, for a $7.99 Trader Joe's brand wine, can pretty much stand up to any store brand in the $15 range. It's a really good wine.
Speaker 1:
2:32
Dna Cellars are the people behind this. Their main headquarters is Napa and they own a vineyard in Mendocino and in the Russian River. They don't own a vineyard in the Yakima Valley. They got those grapes somewhere else. Dennis Spattin is the D. He's been in the business for probably 40 years, been making these private labels for 15 years, and the A is Andrea Silverstein. She's got 25 years. So these are people who know what they are doing. They're not the winemaker, but they know who to get, who to talk to to find the grapes. They have their own winemaker who makes their wines for them, and if you go to their website, dna Vineyards, they have a whole bunch of labels from Trader Joe's wines. You know, the Dearly Beloved Day of the Dead Ones is one of theirs, that Pinot Noir. That is a courtroom with animals as the judge and jury. Only the animals are wearing head things of other animals. So the fox is a pig and the goat is a cow, that kind of thing it's really. I bought it because of that and it was really good anyway. Oh, they've been making. They have some of my favorite Trader Joe's brands. Dna Vineyards has been making them. So what we got here is a fuck.
Speaker 1:
3:55
Chardonnay, unoaked from a really good AVA. Washington is a really good place, especially for value, price, but even expensive wines too. But there's a roundness to the fruit. And take another sip. Yeah, this wine didn't need to be oaked or malolactic. There is some tartar flavors in there, some more citrusy things and a really good acidity, but it doesn't need any help. It doesn't need to be rounded off.
Speaker 1:
4:30
This is a tasty Chardonnay $7.99 from a single AVA. Who knows it might be even better than a single AVA. Who knows it might be even better than a single AVA? I'm made by people with a ton of experience. There's apple in there, there's lemon, there's peach and pear, there's a dried pineapple, there's nectarine. Yeah, it's good. I mean sometimes, sometimes un-oaked chardonnays can get a little sharp for me, not this one. This one's just got good flavor and that's all there is to it. So there you go.
Speaker 1:
5:08
This is the Starpoint. Oh, you might have known the Starpoint label before, because DNA Vineyards has made for Trader Joe's the Starpoint Sauvignon Blanc, which also had 10% Semillon. So that Sauvignon Blanc Semillon. That's the Bordeaux style. 90 Chardonnay, 10% Semillon. That's kind of typical. So they have made Bordeaux wines out of this area, which is again the cooler climates where they got the grapes from. That's more like Bordeaux and that was a really good one to a Bordeaux style Semi on from Washington State. That was also eight bucks. So the star point wines is definitely worth sinking out and it tastes great. It, like I said, it'll run and gun with wines twice the price. That's it with me. Domain Dave, cheapwinepartnercom. Again the Starpoint, yakima Valley Chardonnay 2023. Eight bucks, well, well worth it. So, adios, keep it cheap, stay warm and I'll be talking to everybody in a couple days. Bye-bye.
