Fast Facts:
- Villa Alena Cranberry, Italy ($7.99 @ Trader Joes, California)
- Porto Morgado, 10 Years Tawny Port, Portugal ($11.99 @ Trader Joe’s, California)
It’s difficult to belive, but here we are careening towards the end of another year. And the crush of Q4 holidays makes it a slippery slope into 2025. But I am getting ahead of myself, we all have a Thanksgiving holiday to get through.
And for our final post in advance of said holiday, we have two unconventional “wine” choices. We only use the quotation marks in this missive to signal that the Villa Alena Cranberry Moscato may or may not technically be wine. It may be a wine beverage. What ev. It is a beverage that will satisfy the large segment of the population that find regular table wine too dry. There is no arguing that this Villa Alena is a mouthful of sweet deliciousness. It is a mash-up of super ripe tropical flavors compliments of the Moscato grape paired with some nice tartness from the cranberry flavors. Heck, it’s like cranberry sauce in a bottle! And with an ABV of just 5%, one could actually consume a whole bottle and still debate with your most troublesome relatives – and win!
We refer to this as one of the bookends as this would make a really good choice for a refreshing aperitif to precede the big holiday meal. But for those that eschew dry table wine, it may suffice as the accompaniment for the holiday meal untll the dessert wine arrives on the scene…
The other ” bookend wine” is one that would pair really nicely at the latter end of the meal when desserts are being served. We have enthusiastically reviewed this 10-year Tawny Port before, and we still find it to be a really fine pairing with a wide range of traditional turkey day desserts. Tawny port is a delicious mouthful of caramel, vanilla and spice flavors that will pair well with most of the traditonal holiday sweets, but especially fruit and nut pies! Its ABV is high at 20%, but you’re not likely to be throwing back 5 ounce pours of this syrup so you should be okay.
This is our final Thirsty Thursday post in advance of the big holiday. We send out our best wishes for a safe and joyful Thanksgiving to you and yours. We appreciate your engagement, and look forward to providing you with more wine picks as we count down the final weeks to – gasp! – 2025.
Need More Wine Picks from Trader Joe’s – or Costco?
If your search for this wine lands you in Trader Joe’s, take along our handy Lucky 13 list of TJ’s wine here.
And if your wine shopping excursions land you in Costco, prepare by grazing our most recent reviews of Costco wines here in our Lucky 13 list.
Cheers!
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