The Oyster Bay Rosé 2022 is made from Pinot Noir grapes from grapes farmed in the Wairau Valley of the Marlborough region on the South Island of New Zealand. This is a wine found on sale in Chicago for $10.99 while the average price on the internet is $14. When New Zealand wine first broke…
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The Dreaming Tree Pinot Noir 2020 is a collaboration between Dave Matthews (yeah, that Dave Matthews) and New Zealand winemaker Sean McKenzie. This is Pinot Noir sourced from multiple locations in France. French wines are typically sourced from one appellation or a sub-appellation, such as Bordeaux or the Médoc. The vineyards used for a particular…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir 2020 Lot 229 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. The Sta. Rita Hills AVA (pronounced Santa Rita Hills) is located inside the Santa Ynez Valley AVA which is inside the Santa Barbara County AVA which is part of the Central Coast AVA. It is called the…
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The Wonderwall Edna Valley Pinot Noir 2019 is sourced from three vineyards, Morro View, Greengate, and Jesperson, in the Edna Valley AVA just north of the town of Arroyo Grande, a few miles away from the Pacific Ocean in the Central Coast AVA. Wonderwall is a brand from Andrew Jones of the Field Recordings WInery….
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The Westmount Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2020 is one of the brands from NW Wine Company, a custom crush wine company, that also produces its estate wines. The website mentions that it has over 800 acres of vines, while the Westmount website says they have over 100 acres of vines. The back label says that…
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The Rodney Strong Russian River Pinot Noir 2018 is an estate-grown 100% Pinot Noir. For a little bit of background, Rodney Strong was a dancer on Broadway who came to Sonoma in 1959 and became a modern pioneer of California wine. He was one of the first to plant Pinot Noir in the Russian River…
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The Don Rodolfo Mendoza Pinot Noir 2019 is a wine sourced mainly from the Lujan de Cuyo Valley inside the greater Mendoza region of Argentina. The Don Rodolfo Winery was founded in 1870. The Lujan de Cuyo Valley is located in western-central Mendoza and the vineyards are situated 3,300 to 5,000 feet. Lujan de Cuyo…
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The Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Carneros Pinot Noir 2020 s a $12.99 TJ’s exclusive. The 2020 vintage is the 12th edition of this Pinot Noir, here is a link to a CWF review of the 1st edition, it was ten bucks then. Every Carneros Grand Reserve is Lot #23, so it seems all 12 vintages…
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The Trader Joe’s Platinum Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2020 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. I am not sure about the difference between a Platinum Reserve, a Diamond Reserve, and the good old Grand Reserve Trader Joe’s wines. But they do have a track record of being solid bang-for-the-buck wine. The Santa Lucia…
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The Meiomi California Pinot Noir NV is a very popular wine. In 2015, Constellation Brands purchased the Meiomi brand from Joe Wagner of the Wagner family of Caymus fame for $315,000,000. At the time, Meiomi was selling 600,000 cases of Pinot Noir per year, that is, over 7 million bottles. From what I have read,…
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The Hwy 5 Pinot Noir 2020 is a $5 Aldi exclusive sourced from vineyards in California. Aldi owns the trademark for the brand name, but E & J Gallo made the wine. Neither Aldi nor Gallo offers any production information concerning this wine. I suspect if they told us the production details, we would not…
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The Mud House Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019 is a reasonably priced Pinot Noir from New Zealand. Central Otago is located in the southern part of New Zealand’s South Island. Marlborough, where most of the Sauvignon Blanc is produced, is on the northern tip of South Island. This Pinot Noir is sourced from a single…
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The Upper Eden Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2019 is a $12.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive wine made for them by an independent specialty wine brand producer located in the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA of Monterey County in California’s Central Coast. The vineyards sit in the highlands or benchlands of the Santa Lucia Mountains with elevations…
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The Moon X Black Pinot Noir 2020 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive, though, in New York, where grocery stores are not permitted to sell wine (beer only), it sells for $10.99 (on sale from $13.99). If you think that $6.99 is too cheap for a decent bottle of wine, you have to remember store…
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The Butler Pond Pinot Noir 2018 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive sourced from vineyards in California. There is an exception to this being an exclusive wine. In New York, grocery stores can only sell beer; wine must be sold at liquor stores. An online wine retailer in New York sells the Butler Pond Pinot…
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Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Russian River Pinot Noir 2020 is an exclusive wine of $12.99 Trader Joe’s. This Pinot was produced for Trader Joe’s by MWK Wine Consulting, a private label winemaker. This wine is 100% Pinot Noir, which is nice to see when Petite Sirah and Syrah are added to give Pinot Noir some…
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The Estancia Monterey Pinot Noir 2018 is another wine brand that was a part of Constellation Brands sale of its value-priced wines to E and J Gallo. The sale was finalized in early 2021, so these brands will not be fully Gallo wines until the 2021 vintage. These are brands that are currently caught in…
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The Tailslide Pinot Noir 2019 is a $6.99 ALDI wine, and that is all I know about this wine. If you go to this link and search by Tailslide, you will find out which winery produced the wine. Since the winery name is not on the bottle, I do not like to say that this…
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The Prophecy Pinot Noir 2019 is an $11 or $12 wine available at supermarkets and wine shops. The Prophecy brand is one of E and J Gallo’s large family of wines. The first thing of interest you notice about these wines is the labels designed by Victo Ngai, a talented illustrator from Hong Kong. She…
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The Mark West Pinot Noir 2018 is sourced from several California grape-growing AVAs. It is a brand that has been around since the 1990s and had been the top-selling Pinot Noir in the US. Mark West is a brand that specializes in value-priced Pinot Noir. This is their taste of California blend, but they have…
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The Domaine Jean Bousquet Brut Rose is a non-vintage Sparkling wine, 95% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay sourced from Estate vineyards in the foothills of the Tupungato Mountain in the Uco Valley of Mendoza in Argentina. Tupungato is one of the tallest mountains in the Americas, and the vineyards are situated at 4,000 feet. Domaine…
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The Don’t Mind If I Do Pinot Noir 2019 is a $7.99 ALDI wine with 85 calories, zero fat, and no sugar every 5 oz. serving. Eighty-five calories are 30% less than a typical California Pinot Noir, and the alcohol content of similar wines is 13% to 14.5%. Most wines have some sugar content. We…
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The 19 Crimes Snoop Cali Rosé 2020 is a brand from Treasury Wine Estates, a mainly Australian company with wines from all over the world, including American wines like Beringer and Stags’ Leap. The 19 Crimes brand lineup features Australian wines, but the Snoop Dogg wines are sourced from California vineyards. The 19 Crimes wines…
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The Sea Sun Pinot Noir 2019 is a wine from Charlie Wagner, a part of Wagner Family Wines, including Caymus Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, Conundrum wines Mer Soleil Chardonnay, and a younger son Joe Wagner founded Meiomi Pinot Noir that was recently sold for a staggering amount. The Wagner family has been in California wine since…
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The William Wright Monterey Pinot Noir 2018 is a $9.99 Aldi exclusive. It is exclusive to Aldi in the United States but a quick check of the internet saw this wine selling for $34 (Canadian) and for the equivalent of $25 in Denmark. I am not sure as to what to make of the price…
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