If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time you know that I was in the wine industry for a few years so I am fairly educated about all things wine. I love sparkling wine and we drink a fair amount of it here at Club Trader Joe’s global headquarters. We don’t drink a lot of Trader Joe’s wines, especially the Charles Shaw wines. While they are a great value for what they are, I make enough money to afford something higher on the flavor scale. Sorry Trader Joe’s!
However, this sparkling wine is one I would be proud to buy by the case at my New Year’s party or for any holiday occasion. Hell, it’s so cheap I might just serve it on a normal Tuesday night!
What we have here is a sparkling wine “Made in France” which is hard to pin down where exactly this is from. Blanc de Blancs means it just a sparkling wine made from white grapes. Blanc de Noir is sparkling wine from red grapes. Real Champagne can be only Chardonnay or Pinot Noir or a blend of both. Don’t call this “Champagne” since it looks like it probably wasn’t made anywhere close to Champagne. I have no idea what region this wine came from. Very doubtful it came from Champagne but probably the Loire valley or the Alsace, or a blend of both!
This wine is a nicely carbonated, straw yellow color. It’s bone dry (which I like) and fairly light on the palate. There wasn’t much aroma like you might find with a fine Champagne but what do you expect for $5.99?!?!? If you have a large crowd to supply drinks for, then I would stock up on this wine and nobody will care much except for that one wine snob in the crowd.
If you don’t want to break the bank, I highly suggest loading up on this before the big night. Trader Joe’s carries it all year long, but right now they have cases of it stacked up for the holidays!
