Start 2012 off with a firm commitment to making the best use of your wine budget. We can help you with that by checking out our weekly wine bargain recommendations. Try these wines and tell us in the comment section what you think about the wine. Please suggest any wine you think should be on our recommended list. Here are this week’s bargain wine picks.
Rabbit Ridge 2010 Allure de Robles $4.99 Trader Joe’s – Joe’s Pick
This wine recently made it to the shelves of my Millbrae Trader Joe’s. The 2009 vintage of this wine did not hit the TJ’s stores until February. There was a ton of the 2009 with huge floor stacks at TJ’s. Not only is this vintage early but there is just a handful on the shelves. I am recommending this wine with reservations. I like the wine early on with nice aromas and good flavors, but suddenly the wine falls flat with no follow through. I like it for one glass and after that it is no fun. The wine is decent and you cannot beat it for the price of $4.99. Vintage Wine Taster Jim likes this wine and will purchase it in case amounts. I give it 84 Points. Jim goes with 86 Points.
Deligeroy Crémant De Loire $11.99 KL Wines – Joe’s Pick
At the Redwood City K&L Wines, the Deligeroy is a “Staff Pick.” I never really know if this is just a marketing ploy or if the staff really loves the wine. In this case, the staff is right on about this sparkler. It is a little different than most sparkling wines but something quite enjoyable. The Deligeroy Crémant is made of Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc. It is refreshingly dry and crisp and makes for an excellent aperitif wine. It is elegant on the mouth with nice apple and pear flavors. An interesting aspect of this sparkling wine is that there are not a lot bubbles in the wine, and they seem much smaller when you compare them to most sparkling wines. 88 Points.
2008 Santa Ema Reserve Merlot $9.99 Cost Plus World Market – Mike’s Pick
This is a medium-bodied wine from Chile with tons of fruit and a nice touch of oak. This is superior to Napa Merlots I have tasted at twice or more the price. This wine delivers at a great price and demonstrates the amazing values you get in international wines. Merlot lovers would fall over for this wine.
91pts.
Have you made your wine resolutions yet? If you haven’t read our last post on New Year’s Resolutions, make sure you do and follow a few to make yourself a better bargain wine hunter in 2012.
Watch for our next post mid-week. We will be giving away a pair of tickets for the Zinfandel Festival that takes place January 26 to 28.
I am starting to taste a lot of organic wines. But you won’t see many of them in this column for one very good (actually very bad) reason. Organic wines tend to cost more than other wines. So when I saw this bottle I snapped it up. Actually, I’m sort of cheating. The bottle cost under $10 but it’s only 500 milliliters, 2/3 the size of a regular wine bottle. So I took smaller sips.