Strap in and prepare for a wine mystery that rivals any detective novel! It’s your affable guide, Domain Dave, and today, I’m taking you on a journey through Costco’s wine aisle to uncover the story behind a puzzling blend – the McLean Vineyard’s Love, a red blend. We’re talking questions without answers, a winery that appears to have vanished, and a wine that’s as strange as it is scrumptious.
Priced peculiarly at $13.89, this non-vintage wine throws us curveballs at every turn. From its fascinating blend of Zinfandel, primitivo, petit syrup, merlot, and even Grenache Blanc (a white grape, mind you), to the LLC implications in winemaking, we’re delving into every corner of this wine mystery. We’ll ponder the reasons behind its non-vintage status, speculate on its origins, and debate whether this is a liquidated $27 bottle being sold at half its value. No matter the riddles this wine presents, we can’t ignore the fact that it’s a delightful bargain. And word to the wise – snap it up while you can, because this quality wine is flying off the shelves. So, pour yourself a glass and join me, Domain Dave, as I navigate the perplexing world of McLean Vineyard’s Love – a journey as intoxicating as the wine itself.
Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com
or email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com
0:03
Welcome again. It's Domain Dave from cheapwinefightercom and we're going to talk about a wine that we wrote up on the cheapwinefightercom website, like we always do, and this one's from Costco and it's a little bit of a mystery wine. What's the name of it? It's the McLean Vineyard's Love, a red blend. It's non-vintage and there's some questions here that I don't have answered. I think it's $13.89. It's one of those weird Costco prices. First of all, mclean Vineyard's doesn't have a website anymore. It's been vacant that you can buy it if you want it and they haven't updated their social media like Facebook in like 14 months, maybe seven months for some of the others they don't seem to exist anymore, but they have wines at Costco odd. Another thing is these wines maybe a year or two ago, because when it was selling in different wine shops they were anywhere from $20 to $27. Because McLean was a kind of bespoke winery and fossil rubles, templeton to be exact, and they had a small vineyard and they made, I think, three or four different bottlings Not too much of anything kind of specialized over the years in syrup. And this is a red blend, non-vintage. I'm going to grab the bottle to. It's a unique blend. It is Zinfandel syrup, primitivo, petit syrup, merlot and Grenache Blanc. Grenache Blanc is a white grape. This is a central coast wine. They make most of their wines their usually wines are from fossil rubles from their own vineyard. This seems not to be made by that. It says vented and bottled by. Vented and bottled by means, basically a bottled it and maybe did a little bit of something. But that doesn't really mean anything anymore because with all the LLCs and what have you, you know you could have a. I mean, since they seem to purchase grapes contracted grapes, because these are kind of a unique blend of what they were doing and Grenache Blanc to go in there, and Zinfandel and Primitivo are the same grape. Primitivo is what they grow in Puglia, italy, and Zinfandel is what they call it in Lodi and everywhere else in California. Now it might be two different clones of the same grape that originally came from Croatia that's a little wine fact in there but they list it separately and maybe that they're, because if they are different clones they would have different characteristics. But they could have formed an LLC and I'm making this up because I can't find any information about it to purchase those grapes and create the wine and then they use their regular bottling line to bottle the wine. So the LLC made the wine, the bottling wines, that's why vented and whatever happened. And then we go to why is it not vintage? You know, a not vintage wine sometimes has a reputation for being lower quality. Not so much anymore, because there are wines that are not vintages, that the winemaker intentionally did everything with and it could be like, say, they had some cabiners selling y'all that it needed a little extra time to barrel. It was really really good grapes. He wanted to put it with grapes from a newer vintage, but he wanted that extra time for the Cabernet and they put it together. It's not vintage. Two different, the grapes come from two different vintages and here it's not vintage. We have no idea if it's one, two, three, four, five different vintages. We have no idea where they came from and none of the grapes seem to be anything that you really need to add a lot of um ocaging to Um. Zinfandel, you know, doesn't need tons of it. Petitserad doesn't need tons of it. Merlot maybe, maybe not. You know it's premature, you know, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be a. Uh like you look at it and go, ah, that's why that happened. So what we have is a 13-14 dollar wine that might have been a 25 dollar wine at one time from a winery that maybe exists and maybe doesn't, from the central coast, and they make bespoke wines and you don't normally get bespoke wines For the price of what we're paying which is under $14, at a big box and one of the bigger boxes of all the big box stores. Let me take a sip and a unique blend has a unique flavor. It's delicious. This is a good wine and I don't know what to say about it because nothing makes that much sense about it. The bottle is love and it's rainbow of colors. I don't know what that means either. So why isn't there no information? Why isn't there anything? As a bespoke winery, you don't figure it to little boutique things. You don't figure them to have a ton of information about their wines. But if you get a bottle in into Costco but is this a liquidation? Costco bought all that was left up and now they got it in their stores and what they have is they have, and if you want a $27 bottle of wine for under $14, you better run to Costco. Is that the story here? Maybe Does it taste like it could be in the $20? Yeah, it does. Wine makers don't put those grapes together accidentally. There had to be a lot of intentionality in there to do it, and this is a winery that was very barrel oriented. They have one or two barrels of this, one or two barrels of that and they always mix them together. And then why would you put Green Ash and Block in there? It's kind of a weird grape to add to red wine, but it works, you know, and there you go. So what do I know about it? Almost nothing, except I like it and it's at Costco and you can find it online for more, and occasionally I think this was at one point was like a $12 wine, $11 one, but not anymore. I guess it's selling out. Is there more? I think so, because if you can't keep your website going, you're probably not keeping your winery going. But it's good and it's a bargain and it's unique. You're not going to find two of these wines rolling around. Yeah, it's quality. If you can go to Costco and pick what up do, it's worth the try. It's delicious, it's for me. Mclean vineyards love a red blend. I'm Domain Dave. This is a cheap wine finder. I've got a couple of interesting wines to talk about coming up red wines and from Costco. I made a little run so we'll have a little bit of those coming up. So I like this, you like your podcast. Push buttons, if you will, and come back next time. We appreciate it and I'll be talking to everybody pretty soon. Stay safe, stay, stay warm and cool and dry. And adios, happy time.
