The first of a couple tasting notes from Trader Joe’s wines I’m trying out for potential house wines. I’d like to stay in the $10 a bottle or less range for everyday vino and I did like the 2004 vintage of this Primitivo earlier this year. My criteria other than price is food friendliness and something that would give a $25 wine a run for it’s money. This one delivers on the former but falls well short on the latter. Still it’s a decent quaffer for Italian fare.
Campagna Gello, “Il Valore”, Primitivo, IGT Puglia 2005 ($4) – Dark purple in color with aromas of dark fruit, earth and violets. Tart cranberry, black cherry and black pepper flavors finishing with medium tannins. Not bad for $4 but I liked the 2004 better as it seemed to have more weight on the palate. Would be a good pizza or pasta wine, however.
13% ABV
Synthetic closure (difficult to remove)
Score: 78
It’s fun to scour the aislies of Tradre Joe’s is’nt it? I did a three part blog called “the Trader Joe’s experiment where I would go to the new store here in NYC and try to find good values. It was definitely hit or miss. But if your open minded and on a budget there are some options. My wife is an artist and had an opening in Brooklyn. We bought two cases of the Chuck. It was fun to try them without thinking too much on them.
http://evwg.blogspot.com/2006/09/trader-joes-experiment-part-i.html
http://evwg.blogspot.com/2006/10/trader-joes-experiment-part-ii.html
http://evwg.blogspot.com/2006/10/bushwick-open-studios-and-chuck.html
Looks like you’ve had quite an adventure with TJ’s and, yes, it is fun to see what is behind those corks of $4 vino every now and then 😉
RE: 2 Buck Chuck; I’ve never been a fan but have found them everywhere from terrible to strange to quaffable. The SB you mentioned has to be the strangest brew of them all. In my recent tasting before I deglazed a pan with it (now you are onto one of my little secrets) I thought it tasted like Muscat laced with apple juice. No varietal character at all and flabby to boot. Cooked fine, however. The Merlot and Cab are both in the Kool-Aid school of wine, while the Shiraz is usually the most quaffable of the bunch with that Yellowtail-like concentrate on the finish. For $2 or 3 a bottle, you get what you pay for.
The other wines in TJ’s are worth taking a flyer on from my experience.