The Firesteed Oregon Pinot Noir 2020 is produced from grapes from several growing Oregon regions. Willamette Valley is the most well-known, but there are 23 AVAs, including Rogue Valley and Umpqua Valley. The Firesteed Winery (founded in 1992) is located in Dundee, Oregon. This is their entry-level offering with their wines focusing on different areas…
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The Bar Dog Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is 95% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Petit Verdot, 2% Petite Sirah, and 1% Merlot sourced from vineyards in California. Bar Dog is one of the family of wine brands from Vintage Wine Estates that has an excellent assortment of brands, they have high-end wines, affordable, and specialty wines. I like…
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The Rough And Ready Cabernet Franc Vs Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is an $8.99 Trader Joe’s wine, but in places that don’t have a Trader Joe’s this wine sells for $15 to $18. It is a wine made for Trader Joe’s by Bozzano & Co., they have produced other quality wine for TJ’s in the past….
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Paso Robles Meritage 2021 is a $9.99 TJ’s exclusive. The back label says this Red was “vinted and bottled by Healdsburg Wine Cellars.” That is a division of Delicato Family Wines, they make Gnarlyhead wines, along with many other brands. They recently purchased Coppola WInes and also have holdings in Napa….
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The Woop Woop Shiraz 2020 is an Australian Red wine you should be able to find in the $12 range. In the early 2000s value-priced Aussie Shiraz wines were the rage and Woop Woop was always a bang-for-the-buck bargain. Here is a link to a write-up on the 2013 vintage, the last time we featured…
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The Angeline California Sauvignon Blanc Reserve 2021 is a wine I found on sale for $7.99 (Binny’s Chicago area), this vintage received 92 points from James Suckling, the leading wine reviewer. Angeline is an affordable line of wines from Martin Ray Winery (family owned since 1990) a high-end winery located in the Russian River AVA…
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The Kirkland Signature Extra Dry Prosecco Rosé 2021 is a 7.99 Costco exclusive. The traditional Prosecco grape, Glera, and Pinot Noir are used for additional flavor and color. This is an Extra Dry or slightly sweet wine, which is the way the Italians prefer it. The natural acidity balances the extra sugar, so this is…
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The Cloudline Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2021 is 100% Pinot Noir sourced from several vineyards in the Willamette Valley AVA of Oregon, about an hour south of Portland. Cloudline is a brand (this is its 20th year) from Domaine Drouhin in collaboration with their importer Dreyfus, Ashby, and Co. The Drouhin Family has one of…
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The Sainte Celine Chablis 2022 is a $14.99 Trader Joe’s import wine. It is produced for trader Joe’s by Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard a noted Chablis producer (since 1973) who has made some of the first organic and bio-dynamic wines in Chablis and Burgundy. Chablis is the northernmost growing region in Burgundy and Champagne is north…
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The Outlander Meritage Paso Robles 2021 is a $7.99 Aldi exclusive. The Meritage in the name indicates that this is a Bordeaux blend, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Merlot, and Malbec grapes. To be a Meritage wine a license is purchased from the Meritage Alliance. They are an industry group promoting education and working on…
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The Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 is a $12.99 TJ’s exclusive. The back label says it was vinted and bottled by Ashford Court, which is a faux winery. These Trader Joe’s Reserve wines are negociant wines; negociants never tell where they got their wines. The Alexander Valley is the upper half…
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The Kirkland Signature Cotes de Provence Rosé 2022 is a $7.99 Costco exclusive. It is produced for Costco by Oliver Sumeire (winemaker) for Famille Sumeire a winemaking family with roots in Provence that go back to the 1200s, though the history of the modern wine business dates to the 1880s. The Cotes de Provence is…
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The Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve Santa Barbara Chardonnay 2021 is 100% Chardonnay sourced from sustainably farmed Kendal Jackson Estate vineyards in Santa Barbara County, The Santa Maria County AVA (the northern boundary of the Santa Barbara AVA and Monterey County. To show Santa Barbara on the label 75% of the grapes have to be grown…
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The Don’t Mind If I Do Pinot Grigio 2022 is Vegan-friendly. You might ask how can something made from fruit not be ok with vegans? It is the fining process, fining is where the solids, grape skin residue and spent yeast are removed from the wine after aging and before bottling. They have traditionally used…
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The Caretaker Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive bottled for them by Miller Family Wines. Bottled for them means just that, they officially bottled the wine, and who knows who did the rest. Miller Family Wines are the parent company of the Central Coast Wine Warehouse which 10 to 15…
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The Codorniu Limited Edition Cava Brut Reserva is a Spanish Sparkling wine I found on sale for $8.99. Codorniu is the oldest winery in Spain with a history going back to 1551. This was way before Cava wines very started. In 1872 Josep Raventos brought the Champagne Sparkling wine methods to Spain and Cava was…
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The 19 Crimes Snoop Dogg Cali Blanc 2021 is California Sauvignon Blanc, Cali Blanc is simply Snoop’s name for it. There is a history of calling this grape something other than Sauvignon Blanc. In the 1960s Robert Mondavi tried selling high-end Sauv Blanc and nobody was buying. In those days Sauvignon Blanc was the cheap…
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The Kirkland Signature K Vine Syrah 2021 is a $9.99 Costco exclusive produced especially for them by House of Smith/Charles Smith Wines from Washington State. This wine is sourced from a single vineyard, Frenchman Hills Vineyard, located in the newly formed Royal Slope AVA (2020). K Vintners has a history of making 100-point Syrah wines,…
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The Rabble Paso Robles Red Blend 2020 Costco is $10.89 at Costco and between $15 and $20 elsewhere. The blend seems to be Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot, Petite Sirah, Tannat, Tempranillo, and Malbec sourced from “carefully selected vineyards in Paso Robles.” The reason I say that seems to be the blend is that…
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The Esteban Martin Garnacha Syrah 2021 is a $4.99 wine at Costco, it sells for as high as $13.99 elsewhere with the average on the web being closer to $8 or $9. Esteban Martin was founded in 2003 with a partnership of Miguel Esteban and Asuncion Martin in a winery located near the town of…
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The Kirkland Carneros Signature Pinot Noir 2021 is a $9.99 Costco exclusive by winemaker Alison Crowe. Alison is the Director of Winemaking at Plata Wine Partners, which owns 60 vineyards and farms 18,000 acres of grapes. They supply grapes for 34 of the top 30 wine companies and make wine brands. This seems to be…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Santa Barbara County Chardonnay 2021 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. The back label says it was made by Ashford Court who also made Trader Joe’s perennial favorite, Cotillion Pinot Noir. The actual producer of Cotillion is Plata Wine Partners of Napa, California. You may have not heard of Plata Wine…
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The Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Red Wine 2021 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. This wine is produced for Trader Joe’s by ASV Wines who have been in business since 1982 and own several sustainably farmed vineyards in the Central Coast AVA and an organic vineyard in southern Monterey County where they grow Cabernet Sauvignon…
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The1 is a $5.99 Trader Joe’s wine though it is available in other countries. This is an IGP-designated wine, the top rating is DOCG followed by DOC. IGP wines have less stringent growing and producing regulations and are often sourced from vineyards in more generic growing regions. Aglianico is said to be one of the…
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The Vino Columbia Valley Pinot Grigio 2020 is a wine that should be found for around $10, I saw prices as high as $13 and I found it for $8.99. It is a brand from Charles Smith/House of Smith Wines. The full name of this wine is Vino CasaSmith and these wines are Italian varietals…
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