Drew's Wine List

NV Kirkland Signature Brut Champagne Vintage:  NV Region:  Champagne , France Winery:  Janisson & Sons Champagne House (Manuel Janisson) Varietal:  Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay (Champagne Blend) Price:  $19.99 at Costco Expert Rating: N/A My Rating:  88+ The Review: Costco- undeniably the greatest gift to mankind. What can't they do? Excessively large quantities of cereal, a lovely selection of butchered meats, free samples, and... really solid private label wine? Yes, believe it or not, Kirkland Signature wines are usually really good and always well below the market price. So how do they make good wines? Like all Kirkland labeled products, they pay another company to make the wines for them. It just so happens that they source from some of the best wineries/regions in the world. This means that several of their wines are competitive in quality with some very good wines. Today's example, the Kirkland Signature Brut Champagne, is a perfect exam...

NV Broadbent Vinho Verde Vintage:  NV Region:  Minho, Portugal  Winemaker:  Michael Broadbent Varietal:  50% Loureiro, 40% Trajudura, 10% Arinto Price:  $10 (Kroger) Expert Rating: 88 My Rating:  89 The Review: As you may have noticed, I try to mix up the kinds of wines I write about. However, I absolutely refuse to write about a red wine when it is 99 degrees outside, so here we are with another refreshing white wine. "Grown-up soda" is what people like to refer to Vinho Verde as. Traditionally, it is a super refreshing white wine from Northern Portugal made from grapes native to the area (Alvarinho aka Albariño, Loureiro, etc.). Oftentimes, there is a light fizz too (hence the soda reference). Because this area is pretty chilly, grapes are usually very high in acid and are released very young. This, combined with the fact that people don't really consider Portgual a big wine producer, means that prices are almost always incredibly cheap. You'll be ha...

2016 Trimbach Alsace Riesling Vintage:  2016 Region:  Alsace, France (From vineyards around Ribeauvillé)  Winemaker:  Trimbach Varietal:  Riesling Price:  $17.97 (Wegmans) Expert Rating:  93 My Rating:  91 The Review:  Hope everyone has been good over the last 2 weeks!  After taking a brief unintended sabbatical due to being absurdly busy at work, I am back to once again write about cheap wine. Today's wine is a little more expensive than usual (still only $18), but it is quite delicious and a great example of Alsace Riesling so I wanted to write about it. Like Beaujolais (see last review), America has a tainted idea of Riesling. We seem to think of it as being horrifyingly sweet stuff. And I'm right there with everyone else. I thought this was the case up until I started really studying wine... Turns out, Riesling is widely considered to be "the greatest grape" and is quite versatile and expressive. I'm still trying to figure out the wh...

2018 Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages Vintage:  2018 Region:  Beaujolais, France (Beaujolais-Villages AOC)  Winemakers:  Louis Jadot Varietal:  Gamay Price:  $10 Expert Rating: 89 My Rating:  86 The Review:  Beaujolais! Is it Burgundy? Is it its own region? Who knows! (if you're already curious this soon into reading the post, I'll answer- it's legally classified as Burgundy, but because they don't grow the same grapes as Burgundy, it's technically its own wine region. You'll soon notice a common theme of France being dumb.) Aside from being fun to say, this is probably one of the more well-known wine regions of the world (especially amongst Millenials and older). However, it's not famous these days for spectacular wines- quite the opposite in fact. It's famous because in the 80's, a wine known as Beaujolais Nouveau exploded in popularity in the US. Beaujolais Nouveau is bottled immediately after fermentation and is traditionally drank exclusively ...

2017 Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay Vintage:  2017 Region:  California, USA  Winemakers:  Kendall-Jackson Varietal:  Chardonnay Price:  $12 (literally can be found everywhere) Expert Rating:  90 My Rating:  89 The Review: Happy Father's Day! Hope all you dads out there had a chill weekend and were able to watch some golf like me... Today's review features a wine from California mega-firm, Jackson Family Wines. The 2017 Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay is a solid wine, a great introduction to Chardonnay, and a classic example of what the grape can do. I've actually reviewed a Chardonnay before, but most of you didn't know about this blog when I wrote that so I'll touch on some things again. First, let me address some thoughts you might have had when I said I was reviewing a Chardonnay. As some of you perhaps know, there's a bit of a stigma around Chardonnay (I've actually been laughed at when I said it was one of my favori...

NV Rondel Cava Brut Vintage:  NV Region: Spain (I think Catalonia)  Winemakers:  Rondel Varietal:  Cava Blend (Xarel-lo, Macabeo, Parellada) Price:  $8.99 at Total Wine Expert Rating:  90 My Rating:  85 The Review: Golf is back next week, and that's a reason to celebrate! Even if you don't like golf, there's always a reason to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than by popping open some sparkling wine?  As I discussed in the previous post, sparkling wine can be a little confusing, so if you haven't read that one I would probably recommend that you do. It might help frame this review a little better. Cava, originally intended to be the Spanish answer to Champagne, has sort of settled into the role of being a lesser-known sparkling wine. Made in the traditional Champagne method but with different grape blends, it achieved a bit of a reputation of being "poor mans Champagne," even though it's totally different. And that's a shame because it'...

Why is sparkling wine so hard to understand? What's up everyone. Hope you've all been doing well and are hanging in there and staying safe! Today's post will be a little different. I sat down to write a review of a sparkling wine, but was gonna end up writing an essay about what exactly makes different sparkling wines different. So, instead I'm gonna take this time to briefly explain sparkling wine (*disclaimer* No matter how much I read about it, it's still confusing, so bear with me). Buckle up everyone, here we go. Sparkling wine... what a wonderful and confusing thing. I love it, you love it, my dad hates it. He's weird. Anyways, I'll try to briefly touch on some of the things that make sparkling  wine so great and so confusing. Cava vs. Prosecco vs. Champagne vs. Sparkling Wine vs. vs. vs. SO MANY DIFFERENT NAMES. So what do they mean and why does it matter to call things by their official names? Does it? We'l l start with Champagne because France m...