Category: Chief Winehound
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Ice, ice, Icewine, baby.
Fast facts: 2016 Levesque Estates Reserve Vidal Ice Wine, VQA Niagara On the Lake, Canada $14.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) This is the first of several posts that will feature wines to pair with the upcoming holidays here in the Northern Hemisphere. This one would be a perfect complement to your dessert table, or – as…
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A Spooktacular Red Blend from Costco
Fast facts: 2016 Chronic Cellars Purple Paradise (Red Blend) Paso Robles $10.99 (@Costco; California) This wine tasted nothing like I expected, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like it… I have to admit that it was the Halloween/Dia de los Muertos vibe of the label that first caught my eye. After all, at our house…
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A $10 Real Deal Chardonnay from the High Rent District of Napa – and TJs!
Fast facts: 2014 St. Clement Chardonnay, Napa Valley $9.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) For a brief, but wonderful, several years in my wine career I was fortunate to spend a fair amount of time working in and around the Napa Valley. Wine (and food for that matter) don’t get much better than they do in Napa,…
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Locking Horns – TJ’s and Costco go Head to Head with Napa Red Blends
Fast facts: 2015 Trader Joe’s Reserve Meritage Lot 176, Napa Valley ($9.99 @Trader Joe’s, California) 2015 Kirkland Signature Napa Valley Red Blend ($10.99@Costco; California) What’s in a name? Sometimes, not much. Let’s start the difference between a Meritage and a “Red Blend”. A Meritage is always a red blend, but a red blend is not…
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A Swan Song to Summer Sipping?
Fast facts: 2016 Noble Vines Central Coast (California) Rosé $9.99 (@Costco, California) 2016 Miralta Monterey (California) Rosé $8.99 (@Costco, California) Here we are, literally on the eve of autumn. I sort of love/hate this time of year. I am grateful for the cooler temperatures, and get excited by the harvest of the 2018 vintage here in wine country.…
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MmmMeritage at Trader Joe’s
Fast facts: 2016 Roustabout Paso Robles Meritage $7.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) So this red caught my eye at Trader Joe’s recently. There were two things that first attracted me to this wine: the magical word Meritage (rhymes with “heritage” but is also pronounced “mehr-it-taj”) which promises good things in the bottle and in the glass. …
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Coloring outside the lines at Costco
Fast facts: 2015 Tangent Paragon Vineyard, Albariño, Edna Valley (California) ($10.39 @Costco; California) 2016 Laurenz V. Gruner Veltliner, Austria ($11.59@Costco; California) The wine grape harvest started recently here in California, and that is a reminder that summer is in the home stretch. So I thought it might be a good time to highlight a couple…
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Three Perfectly Good Wines, Each Just $4.99!
Fast facts: 2016 Maison Barboulot Cabernet-Syrah $4.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) 2016 Sterling Chardonnay, California $4.99 (@Costco; California) 2017 Maison Barboulot Marsanne-Viognier $4.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) I have to admit that I was avoiding tasting these three wines because more often than not, wines priced below $5 are a bit of a crap shoot, the operative…
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Two red, hot wine deals from Costco
Fast facts: 2017 Kirkland Signature Mendoza, Argentina Malbec ($6.99 @Costco; California) 2016 Kirkland Signature Columbia Valley, Washingon State Cabernet Sauvignon ($8.99@Costco; California) See that 91 prominently displayed on the foil of that Kirkland Signature (KS) Malbec? That was awarded by the esteemed James Suckling. I am not a slave to others reviews and point systems,…
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CB+V = Delicious
Fast facts: 2017 Mbali Chenin Blanc/Viognier (South Africa) $4.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) 2016 Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc + Viognier (California) $10.99 (@Trader Joe’s; California) Rodney Dangerfield made a career out of the line “I don’t get no respect.” The double negative notwithstanding, he could have been talking about the white grape Chenin Blanc. In her…