Sommelier Tries Every Trader Joe’s Wine | World of Wine | Bon Appétit

Hey, I'm Samuel A. Andre Houston Mack, and today I'm gonna taste over a dozen wines that you can only get at Trader Joe's. So word on the street is that TJ sells about 40 million bottles of wine a year. That's quite a bit. Today, we decided just to only focus on the wines that were branded under the Trader Joe's brand, and then one of them that made them pretty famous. So I think we'll start there. Okay, we're gonna start off here with the Charles Shaw. This is the Merlot, California, and this is $4.49. So this was affectionately known as Two Buck Chuck. I don't have a lot of hangup on inexpensive wine. I'm really always have been about wine for the people, and because you, the people, asked me to try the wines from Trader Joe's, that's why we're here today. So as we're looking at this, this is a 2022 vintage. It just says California on front. That means that the grapes for this bottle of wine can be sourced from anywhere in California. A sign of quality is more detailed on where the grapes come from. So California's pretty broad. If it had more detail on it, I would expect a little bit more detail in the quality of the fruit and the quality of the product, but I don't know. That's just me judging a wine by its label. All right, we're gonna crack this thing open. There's a little greenness on the nose here, so slightly vegetal. Underneath that, there's some plum, raspberry, black currant. On the palate, it's probably more like chocolate-covered raspberries or currant. Tastes somewhat smoky. Generally speaking, less expensive wines, in order to make them affordable, they don't spend a lot of time in new oak barrels. Valued style wines under a certain price point, definitely at this price point, tend to be done in stainless steel. But a lot of times what they do is they'll have wooden staves inside of the stainless steel to impart some of the flavoring that you get from oak. They could use oak chips. I've seen people use sawdust. So there's lots of ways to kind of achieve the oak or mimic the oak flavoring. It's not authentic, right? So you can tell it right away. On the nose, it felt like it was vibrant with lots of fresh fruit, but on the palate, it feels somewhat dull and not giving anything, kind of almost shut down, numb, if you will. But then really, like, am I really going at this $4.50 bottle of wine this way? I think if it delivers you pleasure, you like to drink it, it's great. But to me, I think it's mid. At worst, at a higher price point. Moving right along, this is Trader Joe's Reserve. This is their Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara County. And this is $9.99. Pinot Noir for under 10 bucks. That's definitely a rare find, especially domestic. Let me explain how Trader Joe's accomplishes this. It's called white labeling. Trader Joe's doesn't own a winery or anything like that. Trader Joe's is just basically selecting the wines and working with producers that they like. Then they ask them to put the Trader Joe's logo and label on it, and hence, this is what we have here. It has the name of where it was produced and bottled. It'll tell you whose license it is, and so that will give you some insight to who actually made the wine and what brand it is. And then a lot of them also have these lot numbers on it. The idea is that you'll be able to recognize the particular lot that you enjoyed. First off, this has what I like to call the P-Funk. Pinot Noir always kind of has, like, this funk element to it. Underneath that is just a hint of cherry, more raspberry, tad bit of earth, but just more like dried dirt. This wine is too alcoholic. All you get is this burning sensation in your mouth, just heat. Right now, this wine is somewhat undrinkable to me. It's pretty hot. Like, I would dunk this in some ice. By dunking this wine into some ice-cold water or chilling it will just kind of take away some of the burning sensation that you get from high-alcohol wine. When red wines are served warmer than they should be, just really accents the alcohol in the wine, and so it just kind of makes your mouth flare up. Red wine temperature, I generally like around 65 degrees. When I say chilled, I'm thinking around 55 degrees. The reason why I don't like this wine is because it's too much alcohol and not enough fruit. So this is Trader Joe's Pinot Gris. This is from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. It's 2023, and this comes in at a whopping $9.99. Pinot Gris is pinot, but it's gray. Pinot Gris almost looks like red grape. It's spotted with, like, some green on it and red. It has a darker skin than most white wine grapes do. Pinot Grigio, Pinot Gris, same grape. The Willamette Valley is located in Oregon. It runs from Portland proper all the way down to Eugene. What you want when you're growing wine grapes or generally anything, you want really hot days so the grapes can ripen phenolically, but then you also want very cool nights so the grapes can retain some form of acidity. So in the Willamette Valley, they do that. All right, we're gonna open this bad boy up. So lemon-lime, somewhat like a lemon custard. There's something confectionary about it, the wine. It smells somewhat like cotton candy. A little bit of peach, nectarine. There's some residual sugar in the wine, but the acidity is pretty high, so it finishes pretty clean, but you do get the sweetness on the palate. Pretty good. This is pretty good. I like this. When we talk about residual sugar, you hear people say the wine wasn't ferment all the way dry. Yeast is gonna eat the sugar and produce alcohol. That's called fermentation. At any given point, you could stop the fermentation, so not all the sugar has been consumed by the yeast if you wanted the wine to be sweet. This tastes like it has a very small, tad bit of residual sugar left in the wine, so it wasn't fermented all the way dry. Yeah, I think $9.99, this is great. If I could get it for $4.49 in the same bottle, I would buy truckloads of it. For Wallamette Valley Designate, and not just Oregon or California, already that means that you're getting some type of quality. This is a winner for me. So moving right along, this is Trader Joe's. This is the Platinum Reserve. This is Cabernet Sauvignon for $17.99. And what's interesting, I get the platinum, I get the play here, so we're moving a step up. There's a little bit more detail on the bottle. This is Cabernet Sauvignon, but it's from Napa Valley. But to be more specifically, it's from a sub-appellation called Oakville. Oakville definitely is the home of King Cabernet Sauvignon. They tend to be some of the most elegant wines. The more detail that you can give me about any wine, the higher the cost of the wine. And to be honest with you, for $17.99, this is still well below the average wine that you can get from Oakville, or that has the Oakville density on the label. So it's still a bargain, because these wines cost triple the amount, mainly starting, like I don't think you can really get anything under 50 bucks from there. But can they deliver the quality of this particular sub-appellation at this cost? We'll see. Okay. There's cedar, there's leather, there's black currant, red currant, tad bit of bitter chocolate. This smells like every bit of high quality Cabernet from Napa. There's quite a bit of tan in there, but like pretty well integrated. It's not too crazy. But other than that, it has everything that you would be looking for in a California Cabernet. It's pretty polished. Yeah, this is very pleasant. It feels like it has some bottle maturity. I mean, it's got three years, but it has some of those aromas and flavors that generally come from a wine being aged. It's all integrated. The alcohol is not out of whack. It's not overly fruity. All of those things have come together. It's a well-balanced, polished wine. And for 17.99, it feels like an incredible price. And I think the only problem that I have with the wine is that it falls a little short on the finish. It feels a little light on the back palate. The wine just stops mid-palate. As I swallow it, it doesn't coat my throat. It doesn't go down. I'm not tasting it afterwards. It's almost like you get to chew the food, but you don't get to swallow it. But other than that, this is a thumbs up. 17.99, like I would drink this wine. I would pay like 35 bucks for it. This is Trader Joe's Grower's Reserve. This is the red wine blend. This is 2,023, and it comes in at $5.99. Grower's Reserve means nothing. It's a marketing term. It doesn't mean anything. It's not regulated by the government. If you look on the back here, it says Certified Organic by California Certified Organic Farmers. Has the little stamp of approval on it. Definitely doesn't mean that it tastes good at all, but we're gonna find out. First thing that jumps out of the glass is violets, raspberry, smells like vanilla, maybe with a little bit of cinnamon. Just smells a little chemically induced there. Yeah, I can't do this. I can't do this one. It's not bad, but I feel like it misses on a lot. I can't put my finger on it. It's saying that it's organic, but it tastes, tastes manipulated in a way. It makes me feel like, ugh. And then I'm getting like this fingernail polish remover. I think there's some, definitely some $5 wines out there, sub $5 wines that bring value. But in my opinion, this one probably doesn't. I wouldn't drink this. Now we have Trader Joe's Grand Reserve. This is the GSM and it's $12.99. GSM, this is an acronym for the grapes that you find in this particular blend. It's 42% Grenache, 39% Syrah, and 19% Morvedra. Grenache, Syrah, Morvedra are some of the standout grapes that are used in the Rhone Valley that make up or comprise some of the great wine blends from that particular region. You can't name a wine outside of that region the same name because it's illegal. You can only get Cote Roti from Cote Roti because Cote Roti is a name of a place. In Santa Barbara, they named this a GSM because they wanted to emulate Cote du Rhone style wine. In the United States, we name wines after the grape varietals in which they're from. Otherwise this would be called Santa Barbara. Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and get in here. So I kind of get like iron, metallic. That's generally for the Morvedra. It's like really savory. It's almost kind of like when you bite your tongue or bite the inside of your lip, like that little bit of blood that comes out. I always kind of associate that with Morvedra. Syrah, there's this pepperiness, this kind of spice. And then it's like this cranberry slash currant. It's pretty tannic from the Syrah, but like it's sucking the moisture out of my mouth. Generally speaking, tannin sucks all the moisture out of your mouth, so it gives that drying out feeling that you get in the insides of your cheek. This has tannin, but no body. And I'm thinking I wanted to see a little bit more lush fruit or depth of fruit. And I think that's what we're lacking here. It's high in alcohol. It's almost 15% alcohol, but it's no grip to the wine. There's no layers. This is all like one rush, no nuance to it in any way. I had high hopes for that wine. I think that you can find a better Cote d'Aron from Cote d'Aron, far superior at this price point. And you can get some stuff that's even better, cheaper. So we're stepping away from today's theme. This is Ernest Rapinoe. This is Champagne from Champagne, Blanc de Blanc, $26.99. So you're probably wondering why this is here. We just had to know. We had to know if Trader Joe's could sell a bottle of Champagne cheaper than Champagne could sell it. It is from a real producer. This is Blanc de Blanc. This means white from white. So they're using only Chardonnay grapes. These tend to be more coveted and more expensive. Champagne is expensive because there's a secondary fermentation that happens in the bottle. So it takes quite a bit of time to make Champagne. So there's lots of things that happen and happen by hand. And generally, the more times you touch something, the more expensive it is. I get like this toasty brioche. It's a little bit of pear. It's got great depth of flavor. It's got layers. It's got nuance. It just seems like it's lost some of its spunk. So the bubbles kind of fall off fast and now it's almost flat. And I just pour this. Now we can deduce why Trader Joe's can sell Champagne for cheaper than Champagne. It's just not good Champagne. Champagne is about the bubbles and the dance. I think this has flavor, but doesn't really embrace the true excitement of Champagne. This is lackluster. So I don't think this would even be good in orange juice. Now we're off to Bordeaux. This is the Trader Joe's Reserve. This is the Lussox Saint-Emilion 2022. And this is for $9.99. Lussox Saint-Emilion is on the right bank of Bordeaux. They're generally known for making wines that are Cabernet and Merlot heavy. And these are lower level tier wines from Bordeaux that actually carry some weight. Lots of people drink them. Generally, these are where you go to to find value. What's prominent on this label is a name that most people can't even pronounce. So Lussox Saint-Emilion is a particular area within a certain region of Bordeaux. And they all have their different laws and rules that you have to abide by, what grapes you can use. They put the name on there so it means something. It's not a generic name or a fanciful name. Lussox Saint-Emilion does garner some respect for the quality and some distinction of how these wines are made and how they taste. This will be the second wine, well, first wine outside of Champagne that we taste that's an import. First off, I smell a little Barnyard here, followed by Black Currant, a little bit of Cherry Cola. That's a fun little wine for $9.99. I think you get the nuances, the complexities of the wine. It's fresh, it's new, it's only two years old, but it's still accessible and drinkable. Some people would be surprised to find this style of wine in Trader Joe's. Their track record tells everybody that they are a force within the wine world and they know that their customers have different tastes. And I think this is a great call. Entry-level Bordeaux, everyday drinking Bordeaux, that tastes fantastic, that delivers on taste of Bordeaux without the price point. This is a no-brainer. We're moving up. This is the Trader Joe's Grand Reserve. This is Meritage. This is Paso Robles, 2021. This is $12.99. So it's Merit, which signifies the quality of the grapes, and then Heritage, which is the homage to Bordeaux. So they kind of put those words together. They started putting this on bottles that were Bordeaux-style blends. This one is from Paso Robles. What I would say is I don't know if the name carries any weight behind it. The use of the term Meritage, to me, it was never used as a standard of quality. It was more about the blend and where the inspiration came from. I'm not real sure if I would be able to use that or could stand by that that was a merit of quality, but I don't know. I'm gonna taste and find out today. A lot more pronounced fruit. There's a little bit of plumminess to it, like ripe plum, red currant, cocoa. There's vanilla from the oak, and there's a little bit of cherry. All right, I like this one. Out of all of the wines that we tasted today, like this wine, what it's advertising on the label is definitely found in the glass and on the palate. When I think about Paso Robles fruit, you think of rich, ripe, this harvest of fruit, bountiful, that's kind of how the wines taste. It delivers on all those categories. This wine is selling what it advertised. Trader Joe's Reserve. This is Rosé of Pinot Noir, 2023 for $9.99. Rosé is a light-skinned contact red wine. Rosé comes in contact with the skins for a little bit of time, and it produces rosé. Generally, rosé is made from red grapes with some skin contact. Conversely, orange wine is skin contact white wine. On the label here, they want to signify that it's from Pinot Noir. Generally, that makes it expensive. All right, we're gonna hop in here. You get a little bit of that pea funk that you generally get from Pinot Noir. There's a little bit of raspberry, but more like kiwi, strawberry, and there's kind of a little bit, kind of a moussaka, kind of gummy thing going on here. The greenness or freshness, this brightness that you smell. That smells somewhat like mowed lawn. It's smoky, but I don't find that as a bad thing. I don't dislike it, but I know that it's there. This is juicy. This is fun. It's fragrant. It's aromatic. Not only is this from Napa Valley, this is from Los Caneros, which is a sub-region within Napa. We're starting to get more detailed about where the grapes are coming from and how this wine was made. You can taste that in this wine. $9.99, I would drink this. Trader Joe's Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, and this comes in at $9.99. I love a good Sauvignon Blanc. I don't drink enough Sauvignon Blanc. I wish I did. Out of all the wines here, this is kind of one of the ones that was at the top of my interest. It almost smells a little bit like cotton candy, like vaguely. There's some grassy elements to it. It's herbaceous. It smells a little bit salty, like a little bit like ocean, but I think what I'm really smelling is this warmthness and this richness. Great acidity. It's got a rich mouthfeel to it, so it has this creaminess and richness, so the wine has texture. Lemon, lemon verbena, $9.99. This wine doesn't disappoint. This is spot on, exactly what I was hoping for and what I thought you would get from a Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc. This is solid. For me, my baseline is, does it taste like what it's supposed to taste like? And I think this wine does. And for $9.99, you're getting a bargain here. This is Trader Joe's Petit Reserve, and this is Carmenere, and this is from Chile. This is 2021. This comes in at $7.99. So this grape, Carmenere, is really championed by the Chileans. It was one of the missing Bordeaux grapes that migrated over. It's kind of not even grown in Bordeaux anymore, but it has flourished over in Chile and it's something that they've raised the flag up and made it their own. Petit, but normally means small. It raises a red flag, considering that the wine is in French. I don't know how it pertains to this wine in particular. I would just think more about price point. On the imported wines, obviously, by law, they have to list the importer there. Importing them in at this particular price point, I think their price goes up, but not enough to affect the United States consumer. I have to say, this is one of the most colorful labels that we tried all day. So there's a little bell pepper here, green pepper. First thing that you pick up off the nose is some cranberry, cinnamon, blackcurrant. This wine has flavor, depths and depths of flavor. It's astringent, but not overly crazy, just the right amount. Lots of fruit, right? So there's depth and breadth of it. It's really ripe fruit. For $7.99, it hits on the mark of what you want a wine to have. It has impact, it has flavor, it has ripeness, it has richness to it. It's lacking in just a tad bit of acidity, but I think this is a really fun bottle to explore without lots of financial repercussions. For $7.99, I think this is a fun pizza, Netflix and chill kind of movie bottle. Trader Joe's has everybody's wine taste covered. They have a sea of wine, an ocean of wine. You can try a plethora of wines that won't break the bank. It seems like a great place to start if you're a novice and a beginner in wine and want to just taste different flavors and different styles of wine. I think it's a cool place to shop. We're not even rolling, are we? We're not, right? He didn't even do the, did he do the thingy? He did the thingy thingy? I'm not trying to f*** with anybody's job. I'm just saying, I didn't see it. I'm completely in your guys' hands. I'd be here all day.