As we all know, Trader Joe’s has always prided themselves for their cheap wine. If you have been living in a hole the past few years, then you probably don’t know about Two Buck Chuck the wine revolution that swept through America years ago. Originally, the price on Charles Shaw wine was $1.99 a bottle in California, which was unheard of except for the cheapest, crappiest wines. Trader Joe’s working with the Bronco Wine Co. were able to pull of this super cheap wine. By many accounts it was quite drinkable. The product used to vary depending on where they were getting their grapes.
Trader Joe’s is always fiddling with their wines. I can’t count the amount of different wines they have. They do have Trader Joe’s branded wines and those are usually more in line with expensive bottles. Some are over $20 a bottle. Trader Joe’s had a line of Organic wines called Green Fin and they did quite well. I don’t know the particulars of that wine but they were decent for the price.
Recently, Trader Joe’s seemed to get rid of the Green Fin line and in it’s place was a whole line up of wines simply called “Shaw” in an obvious reference to Charles Shaw wines. There were a couple of whites, several reds and a rose’ wine. The interesting twist on these wines is that they are not technically “Organic” wines since that is a term reserved for processes and grapes produced in Organic methods. These wines are “Made with Organic” grapes which is different, but since wine is 99.99% grapes (with some other chemicals usually added during production) that’s most of the battle.
The other interesting thing about these bottles is the use of a fairly new idea in the wine world, which is use of these new corks that are kind of like hard liquor corks where they mushroom out over the top of the bottle and make it easier to remove without a corkscrew and re-seal your bottles. I really like them and since it’s all cork, they are easy to recycle.
Now, on to the wine! I think this bottle was about $3.49 in Washington state which is a great deal on a drinkable bottle of wine. I found this to be completely drinkable, if slightly sweet for my tastes (I like bone dry wines and I know the vast majority of Americans don’t) I could actually tell it was pinot gris grapes and there was some fruitiness to the nose. I could easily drink this on a Tuesday night with a bowl of lemon piccata pasta. Great for sipping in the summer time when it’s hot. If you can get wine at your Trader Joe’s and like a good almost dry white wine, you should get this!
