Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Malbec Napa Valley 2012

Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Malbec Napa Valley 2012 wine. Every once in a while Trader Joe’s hits a homerun with one of their wines and this is one! Trader Joe’s releases wine under several different labels, VINTJS, Charles Shaw, Coastal Trader Joe’s. They usually save their very best wines for the Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve label. A couple of years ago I reviewed a Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Napa Valley Meritage and thought it was the best wine I ever tasted from Trader Joe’s and for .99 it was a screaming deal.

Malbec is originally from France and has really found a home in Argentina in the past decades. Malbec really fell out of favor in France because it doesn’t always grow very good in it’s native land and has lost favor to other grapes. You will find it grown all over the world and there is a fair amount of California and Washington state where it makes good wine too. It has been come a trendy grape in the past few years with Argentina pushing it at cheap prices in the USA. In the wine industry, we call it the new Syrah because when Syrah made a splash on the marketplace in a big way about 15 years ago we couldn’t make enough of it. Now everyone does syrah and I get more requests for Malbec than any other grape and it sells out quickly.

I have to say that I’ve found a wine that is as good or better than the aforementioned Meritage I tasted a couple of years ago . The Trader Joe’s Grand Reserve Malbec Yountville Napa Valley 2012 is a yummy, full bodied Malbec. If you are a Malbec lover, this wine is for you! At $12.99 it’s a great deal for a wine of this quality. It’s a dark inky, smokey, fruity full bodied wine with aging potential. If fact, this wine is a little young and could use a couple more years in the bottle to tone it down a bit and at 13.5% alcohol you are not getting toasted on one glass of wine like some powerhouse wines you get from Napa Valley. Pick some up quickly because I don’t think it will be around much longer. I am going to rate this Trader Joe’s Napa Valley Malbec 9 Bells!