Drinking Large and In-Charge. Kirkland Signature Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2024

SPEAKER_00
0:02

Hey, welcome. It's uh Domain Dave again, like always. Cheapwinefinder.com. Check out the website. We've got um photographs and links on there for the wine. Today we got a Casco one, it's a $20 wine. Just made our uh just made it under the wire. We usually do $20 and under, except in November, December. We go a little upscale occasionally. This is the Kirkland signature Stag's Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2024. The reason it's Stag's Leap District, because that's the AVA, and there's also a very, very famous winery, Stag's Leap, who won the Judgement of 76 in Paris way back when, and put U.S. wines on the map. And they don't want you to think it comes from there, they want you to think it comes from the district or the AVA. Now the AVA is one of the smaller AVAs. It's on the um Silverado Trail. There's a main highway that goes through Napa, and you see all the wineries and everything and the vines. But um, I don't know, three-quarters of a mile to the east, maybe more at different places. There's a Silverado Trail, and they're on the Silverado Trail, Stag's Leaf. There's about 14 wineries and eight growers. Now, the wineries and growers can have multiple vineyards, but none of them are bad vineyards. So the grapes from this wine are from high-end, seriously high-end uh vineyards. So why is it 20 bucks? Why does Casco have it? And what I never noticed uh before, because it was always this is the cheapest it's been in years. It's like two or three dollars more in the past, and I probably since we're doing under 20 um never paid attention to it, but it's been around since 2014, so they have a pretty good supplier for this wine. I'm gonna take a sip. Um California and Napa, including, has been having a lot of trouble. The sales are down, they're they're pulling up grapes. I don't think they're pulling up too many of the grapes in Stag's Leap District. But I thought, oh, maybe this is one of those wines they couldn't sell it, so they dumped it on, not dumped it, but put it to put a deal together for Costco, and I don't think it is. I I mean it could be, but since they've been doing this for 12 years, they're probably using the same supplier. And I don't I also don't think that it's a $50 wine that they're selling for $20. I don't think it's I think it's an expensive, I mean it's $20 at $20 in Costco is a 15% markup, which is very cheap. This is not a cheap wine by any sense, but the bottle is a nice bottle, and the cork was just a cheap pork, uh, not one you would normally find in a um Napa, much less stag's leap bottle. They're sip. When I first started tasting this wine, I thought it was a little bit uh tight. You know, it tasted okay, nothing special. And ever since then it's opened up and there's this really good fudge brownie thing going on, and uh then it's then the blackberry and the blueberry just kind of like got richer and riper. I mean I went from going, hmm, okay, to mmm, okay. See, I'm a voice actor. Took another sip. This is uh nice and smooth and with some really rich uh flavors. And if you really want to contemplate your navel, it's got a little bit of complexity to it. It's kind of nice. So, again, why is this a $20 wine? Now, I don't know, but I do know a couple things. These high-end wines that and go in their top wines, the first press is what goes into like almost universally around the world. Champagne, Barolos, Bordeaux, whatever. When they press the grapes, they don't really crush them, they're very gentle. They don't want to mess up the you know, do too much pressure on the skin. The skins is where all the uh tannins and the chemicals are, and the seeds that got to that too, and stems of their eight stems. They want to gently just push the grapes. Now, how the grapes know which the first juice that comes out is the best juice, I don't know how they know that. But universally, if you look at it, every single fancy, expensive wine uses first run, first run, first press. So, what they do with second press is they sell it, and there's often third press and that type of thing. Now, for a $20 Casco wine, and I'm not saying they did this, but would you complain if we found out this is a second press or even a third press wine? Now, if it was those things, you would have more tannins and more chemicals in there, which meant the winemaker would have to do a little bit more work, you know, cold soaks and uh whatever to kind of deal with all that, where the ones are getting the first press, you're getting the best of the best. And so they just got to do their best, and out comes a good wine. But I don't know. Does this have the kind of oak program that um Stag's Leaf District wines usually have? I don't know that either. Probably not. Those are expensive, and this is $20, which is way cheaper than they are. It might have a good oak program. You know, the difference between a great and a good one for people who like to drink value priced wines is like, I don't know, you know, we're not gonna know a difference. I'm not gonna know that. I mean, I'm not talking for you, but I might not know the difference. And since I'm used to value-priced wines, I'm used to the chocolate and the vanillas and that kind of stuff in a wine, which don't always happen in the more expensive stuff. So, what do we got here? We got the Kirkland Signature Stag's Leap District, Cabernet Sauvignon 2024. 20 bucks. Cheapest has been in years, and if you want a good wine, it's starting to get hopefully it'll get a little colder. It's been 90s here. It's gonna be one of those outdoor wines, which you're gonna and you're gonna open up the neighbors, and you don't have to worry about you know, some $80 wine that you bought that the neighbor who doesn't who drinks beer all the time that isn't gonna appreciate, but you want to show them something nice, show them this one. It's a nice wine, but you're not spending 80 bucks. So there you go. There you have it. Oh, and Trader Joe's currently uh has a uh platinum um reserve stag leap wine, which we'll be talking to about in a couple of days. So, adios, keep it cheap. Um Domain Dave here, um, and I'll be talking to you. This is a good wine. Adios, bye bye.