LIBERTE CABERNET PASO ROBLES

LIBERTE

CABERNET PASO ROBLES

2006

$9.99

This is a clean, smooth, and fruit forward Cabernet displaying flavors of cherry, black currant, and a hint of tobacco. Liberte consists of 95% Cabernet, 4% Malbec, and 1% Petite Syrah displaying aromas of red fruit, smoke and sandalwood. The fruity character comes from the extended hang time of the grapes from Paso Robles. This Cabernet pairs well with beef brisket sandwiches, hamburgers, and chicken masala. At $9.99 this wine is a great value.

TJ’S RESERVE DRY CREEK ZINFANDEL

TJ’S RESERVE DRY CREEK ZINFANDEL $9.99

TJ’s Reserve Zinfandel comes from the heart of Zinfandel country, Dry Creek Valley. This Zinfandel reveals aromas of raspberries, ripe strawberries, and oak. Flavors of raspberry, blackberry and pepper are enhanced with a lingering smooth finish. This Zin is a treat from start to finish. Private labeled for Trader Joe’s this is a steal at $9.99. This wine would sell for $19.99 elsewhere

Robert Stemmler Nugent Vineyard Pinot Noir

Robert Stemmler Nugent Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2006 vintage, $19.99 (suggested price $35)

This is our second single vineyard pinot noir this fall and this one is even better than the last. The grapes come from the prestigious eleven acre Nugent Vineyard in the heart of the Russian River Valley. The pinot grapes are Dijon clones that are hand sorted and, after fermentation, aged for eleven months in French oak barrels.

The aromas you will get off this lovely wine start with blackberry, cherry pit and tanned leather. The initial flavors are fruit oriented with intense, ripe black cherry and a hint of tobacco smoke. The wine enjoys a graceful but very dry finish with lingering hints of citrus and raspberry.

Up until today I felt that the Davis Bynum had been the best Pinot Noir we had tried this year. Not now! This intense and complex but subtle wine is truly spectacular and the perfect wine for any of those robust fall dinners you are going to be enjoying this month. But don’t wait! There are fewer than 600 cases of this wine and I can promise you that it will fly out of here.

Fife Sonoma Zinfandel, 2007 vintage

Fife Sonoma Zinfandel, 2007 vintage, $6.99 (suggested price $28.99)

Fife’s consulting winemaker, Alison Crowe, really shows her talent for creating elegant and complex classic California styled wines with these new arrivals. The excellent 2007 Sonoma Zinfandel, a blend of 91% Zinfandel and 9% Carignane, gives us a nice chance to drink a 90’s style California classic.

The wine’s aroma is punctuated with strong hints of pepper while the initial fruit is a robust combination of cherry cola, dried cherry, cloves and well-balanced oak. There is a nice long lingering finish with enough tannin to suggest that this beauty will age for at least five to seven years.

We sampled this with the new goat and cranberry log and a warmed crusty ciabatta loaf sliced very thin but there is certainly enough spice and body in the wine to make for a good pairing with a pork tenderloin in a reduction sauce with new potatoes and green beans.

Fife Max Cuvee, 2007 vintage

Fife Max Cuvee, 2007 vintage, $6.99 (suggested price $22.99)

We were lucky enough to get a batch of older Fife wines back in the Spring and any of you who were fortunate enough to have tried them or saw the “feeding frenzy” on the sales floor when we wheeled them out know what an opportunity it is to get more of this delicious juice. This offering was still in the barrels back then but now that is in the bottle and ready for drinking you get another chance to taste some of the last superb wines from a winery that has gone out of business.

My personal favorite, the 2007 Max Cuvee, is a Rhone-like blend of Petite Verdot, Syrah, Petite Syrah, Grenache and Carignane. The resulting wine is a very well developed complex combination of flavors that reminded us of a Chateauneuf-du-Pape but without the earthy overtones. The wine shows huge, youthful fruit with layers of black cherry, tobacco and woodiness. It finishes with a crisp finality but there is still enough of a hint of tannin to promise decent aging for a couple of years.

Previous vintages of this wine were selling for $22.99 on release at the winery so that $6.99 price tag makes this an excellent buy. Try it with a nice roasted or deep fried turkey and you’ll be a happy camper on November 26!

Mount Veeder Winery 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon $24.99

Mount Veeder Winery 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon

These bold grape come from Mount Veeder located in Napa Valley. Mount Veeder is known for growing some of the best Cabernet grapes in the world. This complex, big and bold Cabernet has a deep ruby appearance with aromas of blackberry, red plum, and dark forest fruits. You may also notice hints of chocolate and coffee on the nose. Sweet oak notes compliment the vibrant fruit, and a long finish is coated with cocoa, cassis, and earth. This powerful and complex wine is a great value at just $24.99. Enjoy now or hold for many years. The varietal composition is 82% Cabernet, 15% Merlot, and 3% other red varietals.

Alexander and Fitch Cabernet 2004 $5.99

Alexander and Fitch Cabernet 2004

This medium to full bodied Cabernet Sauvignon comes to us from Alexander Valley. Located to the north of Sonoma County, the warmer temperatures and less fog make ideal conditions for growing Cabernet. This wine displays flavors of black plum, coffee, leather and a hint of dark chocolate finishing with silky tannins. Alexander & Fitch is a smooth, easy drinking Cabernet with a lot of fruit. This wine is great for food pairing. Try it with a flat Iron Steak. A great buy at just $5.99.

Trader Joe's West Country English Farmhouse Cheddar

Trader Joe's West Country English Farmhouse Cheddar - $5.79 for 7oz. Truckle

Now, there is a good scrabble word! A truckle is a word used in England to describe a small mini wheel of cheese. This intense cheddar comes from Dorset on England's south coast and has been produced buy the same specialized creamery using only traditional recipes, ingredients and slect cows since the mid 1970s. The European Union recognizes this as a “PDO” (Protected Designation of Origin) insuring a very high standard of quality.

Aged for a minimum of six months and full of rich nutty flavor, it is also smooth and creamy making it as good a choice for cooking (think broccoli cheddar soup!) as snacking. This cheese is hand wrapped and tied in decorated cheese cloth and would make a nice, little gift as it but really benefits from a paring with a full-bodied, fruit forward red or port.

Crane Family 2006 Cabernet Sauvingon

Crane Family 2006 Cabernet Sauvingon - $24.99 (winery price $62.00)

Tasted blind against several other Napa wines in the same price range, the new Crane Family Cabernet was the overall winner of the group and a solid crowed pleaser with all of the more experienced tasters. The solid and elegant bottle opened easily, the cork showing signs of mild penetration and good storage. The wine itself was a deep ruby color. The initial aromas are of a mild, fruity tobacco with hints of cherry, roses and a little vanilla at the finish. Deep, ripe black cherry fruit fills your mouth at the start but the wine dose not loose its balance at the finish. The tannins are in good balance all the way through with a restrained alcohol that hints at an opportunity for a little more aging potential.

Chateau Potelle VGS Cabernet, Mt. Veeder, Napa, 2005

Chateau Potelle VGS Cabernet, Mt. Veeder, Napa, 2005

There are only 836 half cases of this wine out there - $24.99 (suggested price is $39.99)

The beautifully proportioned bottle and elegant label barley do justice to the treat that awaits you after you get the cork out!

I decanted this wine through a venturi and let it sit for just a few minutes to take the edge off. The juice is a beautiful deep grapey color with some tints of strawberry at the edges. The aroma is a rich combination of cedar and black currant. The wine is remarkably concentrated, likely due to the small size of the berries generated by the mountain location of the vineyards. The smaller grapes mean a higher skin-to-juice ration with more intense concentration and better balanced tannins. The fruit in the mouth is largely a deep black cherry with a very slight hint of mint on the finish. While the wine is complex, the bold tannins do not distract you from the superb balance and delicate mouth feel. This is a fine choice for tasters and wine lovers who are looking for that perfect balance of aggressiveness that cabernet offers but want to be able to enjoy the wine today.

Tasting notes from Captain Mark

Do you ever find yourself asking “I wonder what a HUSTLE BUY is”?

A Trader Joe’s HUSTLE BUY is your opportunity to take advantage of one of our unique buying habits. Whenever we find a really special wine out there that is only available in a limited quantity we don’t just walk on by. We taste it, if we like it we negotiate the wine maker to get the most outstanding price and we grab it. Never mind that there isn’t enough for every store, we don’t want you to miss out on a potentially once in a lifetime chance to try something really special. These wines are very limited in quantity so if you like it, do what we do and hustle up and grab some!

2007 Rendition Zinfandel

2007 Rendition Zinfandel $8.99

This Zinfandel from Alexander Valley was mentioned in Wine Spectator as a great value and scored 87pts. The wine has a deep dark purple color. There is a lot of berry, oak, and leather on the nose. This wine has a very full and jammy characteristic and drinks more like an old vine zinfandel. I tasted blackberry, plum, and white pepper, with hints of vanilla. The Rendition is very fruit forward with a soft velvety finish with a hint of tobacco. This is a great buy for $8.99.

Chateau Desmirail, 2003 vintage

Chateau Desmirail, 2003 vintage, $24.99 (suggested price $60)

This is the first “classified growth” we have tasted from Bordeaux in quite a while and it is a real winner. The Lurton family, who control dozens of chateaux across the region, owns the estate. The grapes are all harvested and sorted on the chateaux by hand while the vinification process involves a combination of stainless steel and wood barrels.

Many Margaux are described as being like an iron fist in a velvet glove due to their combination of delicate elegance and potential power. This wine displays this quality largely due to the balance between the fully ripe Cabernet Sauvignon (67%) and Merlot (33%) grapes that went in to it. The initial aroma is fresh and elegant with good amounts of earth, cedar, and leather overtones. There are also some suggestions of florals in the nose. We decanted the wine to accelerate oxidization and found terrifically full wild strawberry fruit overtones with excellent balance and well integrated tannins that did not distract the taster from the velvety smoothness of the mouth feel.

With six years already in it’s development we felt the wine will likely keep nicely for another three to five but is drinking extremely well now. It would match beautifully with a steak au poivre or a rich and simply seasoned filet mignon.

Davis Bynum Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir

Davis Bynum Allen Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2005 vintage, $14.99 (suggested price $40)

Way back in 1973 Davis Bynum distinguished itself by being the first winery to produce a single vineyard pinot noir from the Russian River Valley. Trader Joe’s carried that wine and today, more than thirty years later, the Bynum heritage continues through excellent vineyard select wines like this choice from the prized Allen Vineyard.

The nose of this stylish and somewhat old-fashioned pinot noir is rich and welcoming with a nice combination of dried cherry fruit, cola and herbs. In the mouth the wine is full of rich cherry, earth and orange zest, which carry lightly through a well-balanced finish that leaves a pleasantly full aftertaste. The wine is superbly balanced and very elegant.

This wine would be a fantastic choice with robustly flavorful roast poultry and turkey comes quickly to mind as we approach the Thanksgiving season. However, it would be equally good with a roast or grilled meats.

Introduction

Welcome to the Encinitas Trader Joe’s food and wine blog. Those of you who work at the store know that we try new food items nearly every day of the week and new wines every week. However, we have yet to find the ideal way of sharing notes and experiences with each other. Hopefully this blog will help fill in some of the gaps. Remember…we are not professional tasters. We do this because we are foodies and we want to share this passion with each other. We won’t be listing the notes for the stuff we don’t like, just the stuff we do. So, here we go, ENJOY!

VALPANTENA AMARONE BREGONZO - $16.99

This Amarone is made from 100% Valpolicella grapes. It is full bodied and rich with boldly intense and grapey fruit overtones. The wine is dry and has a wonderful lingering finish. The wine is made in the historic Venetian region of northern Italy and pairs wonderfully with beef or pork served with rich sauces as well as any type of game bird. Try it with a nice pungent cheese like cambazola or manchego and green apples.

Captain Mark