Sommelier Tries Every Trader Joe’s Wine

Hey, I'm sommelier Andre Hueston Mack

and today I'm gonna taste over a dozen wines

that you can only get at Trader Joe's.

[upbeat music]

So word on the street is that

TJ sells about 40 million bottles of wine a year.

That's quite a bit.

Today we decided just to only focus on the wines

that were branded under the Trader Joe's brand

and then one of them that made them pretty famous.

So I think we'll start there.

Okay, we're gonna start off here with the Charles Shaw.

This is the Merlot California and this is $4.49.

So this was affectionately known as Two Buck Chuck.

I don't have a lot of hangup on inexpensive wine.

I'm really always have been about wine for the people,

and because you, the people, ask me to try

the wines from Trader Joe's, that's why we're here today.

So as we're looking at this, this is a 2022 vintage.

It just says California on front.

That means that the grapes for this bottle of wine

can be sourced from anywhere in California.

A sign of quality is more detailed on

where the grapes come from.

So California's pretty broad.

If it had more detail on it,

I would expect a little bit more detail in the quality

of the fruit and the quality of the product,

but I don't know, that's just me

judging a wine by its label.

All right, we're gonna crack this thing open.

There's a little greenness on the nose here.

So slightly vegetal.

Underneath that, there's some plum,

raspberry, black currant.

On the palate, it's probably more like

chocolate-covered raspberries or currant.

Tastes somewhat smoky.

Generally speaking, less expensive wines,

in order to make them affordable,

they don't spend a lot of time in new oak barrels.

Valued style wines under certain price point,

definitely at this price point

tend to be done in stainless steel,

but a lot of times what they do is

they'll have wooden staves inside of the stainless steel

to impart some of the flavoring that you get from oak.

They could use oak chips.

I've seen people use saw dust.

So there's lots of ways to kind of achieve the oak

or mimic the oak flavoring.

It's not authentic, right?

So you can tell it right away.

On the nose it felt like it was vibrant

with lots of fresh fruit, but on the palate,

it feels somewhat dull and not giving anything,

kind of almost shut down, numb if you will.

But then really like am I really going at this

$4.50 bottle of wine this way.

I think if it delivers you pleasure, you like to drink it,

it's great, but to me I think it's mid.

Had worse at a higher price point.

Moving right along, this is Trader Joe's Reserve.

This is their Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara County

and this is $9.99.

Pinot Noir for under 10 bucks,

that's definitely a rare find, especially domestic.

Let me explain how Trader Joe's accomplishes this.

It's called white labeling.

Trader Joe's doesn't own a winery or anything like that.

Trader Joe's is just basically selecting the wines

and working with producers that they like.

Then they ask them to put the Trader Joe's logo

and label on it and hence this is what we have here.

It has the name where it was produced in bottle.

It'll tell you whose license it is

and so that will give you some insight to

who actually made the wine and what brand it is.

And then a lot of them also have these lot numbers on it.

The idea is that you'll be able to recognize

the particular lot that you enjoyed.

First off, this has what I to call the P-funk.

Pinot Noir always kind of has like this funk element to it.

Underneath that there's like just a hint of cherry,

more raspberry, tad bit of earth,

but like just more like dried dirt.

This wine is too alcoholic.

All you get is this burning sensation

in your mouth, just heat.

Right now, this wine is somewhat undrinkable to me.

It's pretty hot.

Like I would dunk this in some ice.

By dunking this wine into some ice cold water

or chilling it, we'll just kind of take away

some of the burning sensation

that you get from high-alcohol wine.

When red wines are served warmer than they should be,

just really accents the alcohol in the wine

and so it just kind of makes your mouth flare up.

Red wine temperature, I generally like around 65 degrees.

When I say chilled, I'm thinking around 50, 55 degrees.

The reason why I don't like this wine is because

it's too much alcohol and not enough fruit.

So this is Trader Joe's pinot gris.

This is from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

This 2023 and this comes in at a whopping $9.99.

Pinot gris is pinot but it's gray.

Pinot gris almost looks like red grape.

It's spotted with like some green on it and red.

It has a a darker skin than most white wine grapes do.

Pinot grigio, pinot gris, same grape.

The Willamette Valley is located in Oregon.

It runs from Portland proper all the way down to Eugene.

What you want when you're growing wine grapes

or generally anything, you want really hot days

so the grapes can ripen phenolically

but then you also want very cool nights

so the grapes can retain some form of acidity.

So in the Willamette Valley, they do that.

All right, we're gonna open this bad boy up.

So lemon lime, somewhat like a lemon custard.

There's something confectionary about it, the wine.

It smells somewhat like cotton candy,

a little bit of peach, nectarine.

There is some residual sugar in the wine

but the acidity is pretty high so it finishes pretty clean

but you do get the sweetness on the palate.

Pretty good.

This is pretty good.

I like this.

When we talk about residual sugar,

you hear people say the wine wasn't ferment all the way dry.

Yeast is going to eat the sugar and produce alcohol.

That's called fermentation.

At any given point, you could stop the fermentation.

So not all the sugar has been consumed by the yeast

if you wanted the wine to be sweet.

This tastes like it has a very small tad bit

of residual sugar left in the wine

so it wasn't fermented all the way dry.

Yeah, I think $9.99, this is great.

If I could get it for $4.49

and the same bottle I would buy truckloads of it.

for Willamette Valley designate and not just Oregon

or like California, already that means that

you're getting some type of quality.

This is a winner for me.

So moving right along, this is Trader Joe's.

This is the Platinum Reserve.

This is Cabernet Sauvignon for $17.99.

And what's interesting, I get the platinum,

I get the play here.

So we're moving a step up.

There's a little bit more detail on the bottle.

This is Cabernet Sauvignon but it's from Napa Valley.

But to be more specifically it's from

a sub-appellation called Oakville.

Oakville definitely is the home of King Cabernet Sauvignon.

They tend to be some of the most elegant wines.

The more detail that you can give me about any wine,

the higher the cost of the wine.

And to be honest with you, for $17.99,

this is still well below the average wine

that you can get from Oakville

or that has the Oakville designate on the label.

So it's still a bargain because these wines cost

triple the amount mainly starting.

Like I don't think you can really get anything

under 50 bucks from there, but can they deliver the quality

of this particular sub-appellation at this cost?

We'll see.

Okay.

Okay.

There's cedar, there's leather, there's black currant,

red currant, tad bit of bitter chocolate.

This smells like every bit

of high quality Cabernet from Napa.

It's quite a bit of tannin there

but like pretty well-integrated.

It's not too crazy.

But other than that, it has everything

that you would be looking for in a California Cabernet.

It's pretty polished.

Yeah, this is very pleasant.

It feels like it has some bottled maturity.

I mean, it's got three years but it has some of those aromas

and flavors that generally come from a wine being aged.

It's all integrated.

The alcohol is not out of whack.

It's not overly fruity.

All of those things have come together.

It's a well balanced, polished wine,

and for $17.99, it feels like an incredible price

and I think the only problem that I have with the wine

is that it falls a little short on the finish.

It feels a little light on the back palate.

The wine just stops mid-palate.

As I swallow it, it doesn't coat my throat,

it doesn't go down.

I'm not tasting it afterwards.

It's almost like you get to chew the food

but you don't get to swallow it.

But other than that, this is a thumbs up.

$17.99, like I would drink this wine.

I would pay like 35 bucks for it.

This is Trader Joe's Grower's Reserve.

This is the red wine blend.

This is 2023 and it comes in at $5.99.

Grower's Reserve means nothing.

It's a marketing term, it doesn't mean anything,

it's not regulated by the government.

If you look on the back here it says certified organic

by California Certified Organic Farmers,

has the little stamp of approval on it.

Definitely doesn't mean that it tastes good at all,

but we're gonna find out.

First thing that jumps out of the glass is violets,

raspberry, smells like a vanilla

maybe with a little bit of cinnamon.

Just smells a little chemically induced there.

Yeah, I can't do this.

I can't do this one.

It's not bad but I feel like it misses on a lot.

I can't put my finger on it.

It's saying that it's organic

but it tastes manipulated in a way.

It makes me feel like ugh.

And then I'm getting like this fingernail polish remover.

I think there's some definitely some $5 wines out there

or sub $5 wines that bring value.

But in my opinion this one probably doesn't.

I wouldn't drink this.

Now we have Trader Joe's Grand Reserve.

This is the GSM and it's $12.99.

GSM, this is an acronym for the grapes

that you find in this particular blend.

It's 42% Grenache, 39% Syrah, and 19% Mourvedre.

Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre are some of

the standout grapes that are used in the Rhone Valley

that make up or comprise some of the great wine blends

from that particular region.

You can't name a wine outside of that region

the same name because it's illegal.

You can only get Cote Rotie from Cote Rotie

because Cote Rotie is a name of a place.

In Santa Barbara, they named it a GSM

because they wanted to emulate Cotes du Rhone style wine.

In the United States, we name wines

after the grape varietals in which they're from.

Otherwise this would be called Santa Barbara.

Yeah, we're gonna go ahead and get in here.

So I kind of get like iron, metallic.

That's generally for the Mourvedre, it's like really savory,

it's almost kind of like when you bite your tongue

or bite the inside of your lip,

like that little bit of blood that comes out.

I always kind of associate that with Mourvedre.

Syrah, there's this pepperiness, this kind of spiced

and then it's like this cranberry/currant.

It's pretty tannic from the Syrah

but like it's sucking the moisture out of my mouth.

Generally speaking, tannin sucks all the moisture

out of your mouth so it gives that drying out feeling

that you get on the insides of your cheek.

This has tannin but no body

and I'm thinking I wanted to see

a little bit more lush fruit or depth of fruit

and I think that's what we're lacking here.

It's high in alcohol, it's almost 15% alcohol

but it's no grip to the wine, there's no layers.

It's just all like one rush, no nuance to it in any way.

I had high hopes for that wine.

I think that you can find a better Cotes du Rhone

from Cotes du Rhone far superior at this price point

and you can get some stuff that's even better cheaper.

So we're stepping away from today's theme.

This is Ernest Rapeneau.

This is champagne from Champagne.

Blanc de Blancs, $26.99.

So you're probably wondering why this is here.

We just had to know, we had to know

if Trader Joe's could sell a bottle of champagne

cheaper than Champagne could sell it.

It is from a real producer.

This is Blanc de Blancs.

This means white from white.

So they're using only Chardonnay grapes.

These tend to be more coveted and more expensive.

Champagne is expensive because

there's a secondary fermentation

that happens in the bottle so it takes

quite a bit of time to make champagne.

So there's lots of things that happen and happen by hand

and generally the more times you touch something,

the more expensive it is.

I get like this toasty brioche.

It's a little bit of pear.

It's got great depth of flavor.

It's got layers, it's got nuance.

It just seems like it's lost some of its spunk.

So the bubbles kind of fall off fast

and now it's almost flat and I just poured this.

Now we can deduce why Trader Joe's can sell

champagne for cheaper than Champagne.

It's just not good champagne.

Champagne is about the bubbles and the dance.

I think this has flavor but doesn't really embrace

the true excitement of champagne.

This is lackluster.

I don't think this would even be good in orange juice.

Now we're off to Bordeaux.

This is the Trader Joe's Reserve.

This is the Lussac Saint-Emilion 2022

and this is for $9.99.

Lussac Saint-Emilion is on the right bank of Bordeaux.

They're generally known for making wines

that are Cabernet and Merlot heavy.

And these are, you know,

lower-level tiered wines from Bordeaux

that actually carry some weight.

You know, lots of people drink them.

Generally these are where you go to to find value.

What's prominent on this label is a name

that most people can't even pronounce.

So Lussac Saint-Emilion is a particular area

within a certain region of Bordeaux

and they all have their different laws and rules

that you have to abide by, what grapes you can use.

They put the name on there so it means something.

It's not a generic name or a fanciful name.

Lussac Saint-Emilion does garner some respect

for the quality and some distinction

of how these wines are made and how they taste.

This will be the second wine,

well, first wine outside of Champagne

that we taste that's an import.

First off, I smell a little barnyard here

followed by black currant.

A little bit of cherry cola.

That's a fun little wine for $9.99.

Like I think you get the nuances,

the complexities of the wine.

It's fresh, it's new, you know it's only two years old

but it's still accessible and drinkable.

Some people would be surprised

to find like this style of wine.

And Trader Joe's, their track record tells everybody

that they are a force within the wine world

and they know that their customers have different tastes

and I think this is a great call.

Entry-level Bordeaux, everyday drinking Bordeaux

that tastes fantastic, that delivers on taste

of Bordeaux without the price point.

This is a no-brainer.

We're moving up.

This is the Trader Joe's Grand Reserve.

This is Meritage.

This is Paso Robles 2021.

It says $12.99.

So it's merit, which signifies the quality of the grapes.

And then heritage, which is the homage to Bordeaux.

So they kind of put those words together.

They started putting this on bottles

that were Bordeaux style blends.

This one is from Paso Robles.

What I would say is, I don't know if the name carries

any weight behind it, the use of the term Meritage.

To me it was never used as a standard of quality.

It was more about the blend

and where the inspiration came from.

I'm not real sure if I would be able to use that

or could stand by that that was a merit of quality.

But I don't know.

I'm gonna taste and find out today.

A lot more pronounced fruit.

There's a little bit of a like plumminess to it,

like ripe plum, red currant, cocoa.

There's vanilla from the oak

and there's a little bit of cherry.

All right, I like this wine.

Out of all of the wines that we taste today, like this wine,

what it's advertising on the label is definitely found

in the glass and like on the palate.

When I think about Paso Robles fruit,

you think of rich, ripe, this harvest of fruit, bountiful,

that's how kind of how the wines taste.

It delivers on all those categories.

This wine is selling what it advertised.

Trader Joe's Reserve, this is rose of Pinot Noir

2023 for $9.99.

Rose is a light-skinned contact red wine.

Rose comes in contact with the skins

for a little bit of time and it produces rose.

Generally rose is made from red grapes

with some skin contact.

Conversely, orange wine is skin contact white wine.

On the label here, they wanna signify that

it's from Pinot Noir.

Generally that makes it expensive.

All right, we're gonna hop in here.

You get a little bit of that P-funk

that you generally get from Pinot Noir.

There's a little bit of raspberry,

but like more like kiwi, strawberry,

and there's kind of a little bit kind of a Muscat

kind of gummy thing going on here.

The greenness or freshness, this brightness that you smell

that smells somewhat like mowed lawn.

It's smoky but I don't find that as a bad thing.

I don't dislike it, but I know that it's there.

This is juicy, this is fun.

It's fragrant, it's aromatic.

Not only is this from Napa Valley,

this is from Los Carneros, which is

a sub-region within Napa.

We're starting to get more detailed about

where the grapes are coming from and how this wine was made.

You could taste that in this wine.

$9.99, I would drink this.

Trader Joe's Reserve, Sauvignon Blanc

and this comes in at $9.99.

I love a good Sauvignon Blanc.

I don't drink enough Sauvignon Blanc.

I wish I did.

Out of all the wines here, this is kind of one of the ones

that was at the top of my interest.

It almost smells a little bit

like cotton candy, like vaguely.

There's some grassy elements to it.

It's herbaceous.

It smells a little bit salty, like a little bit like ocean.

But I think what I'm really smelling

is this warmthness and this richness.

Great acidity.

It's got a rich mouth feel to it.

So it has like this creaminess and richness.

So the wine has texture.

Lemon, lemon verbena.

$9.99, this wine doesn't disappoint.

This is spot on, exactly what I was hoping for,

and what I thought you would get

from a Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

This is solid.

For me, my baseline is, does it taste like

what it's supposed to taste like?

And I think this wine does.

And for $9.99, you're getting a bargain here.

This is Trader Joe's Petit Reserve and this is Carmenere.

And this is from Chile.

This is 2021.

This comes in at $7.99.

So this grape Carmenere is really championed

by the Chileans.

It was one of the missing Bordeaux grapes

that migrated over.

It's kind of not even grown in Bordeaux anymore,

but it has flourished over in Chile

and it's something that they've raised the flag up

and made it their own.

Petit would normally mean small.

It raises a red flag considering that the wine isn't French.

I don't know how it pertains to this wine in particular.

I would just think more about price point.

On the imported wines, obviously by law,

they have to list imported there.

Importing them in at this particular price point,

I think that price goes up,

but not enough to affect the United States consumer.

I have to say this is one of the most colorful labels

that we tried all day.

So there's a little bell pepper here, green pepper.

First thing that you pick up off the nose

is some cranberry, cinnamon, black currant.

This wine has flavor, depths and depths of flavor.

It's stringent, but like not overly crazy,

just like the right amount.

Lots of fruit, right?

So there's depth and breadth of it.

It's really ripe fruit.

For $7.99, it hits on the mark of like

what you want a wine to have.

It has impact, it has flavor, has ripeness,

it has richness to it.

It's lacking in just a tad bit of acidity,

but like, I think this is a really fun bottle

to explore without lots of financial repercussions.

For $7.99, I think this is a fun pizza,

Netflix and chill kind of movie vibe.

Trader Joe's has everybody's wine taste covered.

They have a sea of wine, a ocean of wine.

You can try a plethora of wines that won't bake the bank.

It seems like a great place to start

if you're a novice and a beginner in wine

and want to just taste different flavors

and different styles of wine.

I think it's a cool place to shop.

We're not even rolling, are we?

We're not, right, he didn't even do the...

Did he do the thing?

[Producer] Yeah, yeah.

He did the thingy thingy?

I'm not trying to [bleep] with anybody's job.

I'm just saying I didn't see it.

I'm completely in your guys' hands.

I'd be here all day.