Trader Joe’s VinTJs Horse Heaven Hills Pinot Gris. I am a bit of a wine snob. I’ll admit it. I worked in the wine industry for about 10 years and I am still involved in it in a big way, but not for my paycheck anymore. I’ve gone back to my old (and more lucrative) career of computer programming. Anyways, enough about me! We are hear to discuss another of the myriad of wines that Trader Joe’s seems to constantly crank out. If it’s not Charles Shaw, it’s Green Fin or VINTJS. They even have plain old Trader Joe’s wines and some of them can be quite good. You have to admit they have a plethora of wines!
As I’ve mentioned here before, I live near Seattle, WA and we are awash in new wineries in this state. When I got into the wine business in 2004 there were maybe 250 wineries in WA state. Now there are over 800. That’s a serious jump in 10 years. If you aren’t familiar with Washington State wines you will probably get to know a few producers from this state in the near future. WA state is the 2nd largest wine producer in the USA a long ways behind California.
We all know that TJs is a California based company. They have had a long relationship with several wineries in CA state and have one of the top selling brands in the USA with the Charles Shaw label. I could go on and on about Trader Joe’s wine (hmmm…. another blog post!) so I’ll just move to the review.
I love Pinot Gris. It can be thrilling and nuanced with a lot of flavor especially from the Alsace region of France. Or it can be boring and over produced like many jumping on the Pinot Gris bandwagon recently. This wine is somewhere in the middle. Not the best or not the worst, but what do you expect from a $7.99 bottle of wine. What you have here is a nice, somewhat fruity pinot gris that has a fair amount of mouthfeel and flavor. Like my wife likes to say, it’s a decent Tuesday night wine. The more interesting thing to me is that it’s one of the first TJ’s labeled wines to come from WA state and of all places the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. That AVA is not really known for it’s Pinot Gris and this one isn’t going to make the wine reviewers stand up and applaud but it’s a decent everyday drinking white wine.
Would I buy this wine again? I really might! It’s really not too bad and at $7.99 it’s not a bad price. It’s a dry wine and compared to some of the Charles Shaw wines it clearly got more going for it than those wines. I will give the Trader Joe’s VINTJS Horse Heaven Hills Pinot Gris 7 Bells!