Crap Alert! 2016 TJ’s Platinum Reserve Yountville Cabernet

Highly touted in Trader Joe’s newsletter…$14.99.
In Yountville, what could possibly go wrong?
Fu*king PLENTY!
A noxious candy cocktail; teeth-decaying sugary residual. This is flabby-assed beyond belief! Oh, and don’t forget the immensely clipped finish that drops off the palate like an unwanted, screaming banshee off of a cliff.
Even non-wine geeks would find this utterly awful.
Much, MUCH more akin to cheap, Dollar Store grape juice.
Stay.Away.If.You.Like.Enjoyment.In.Life…!
Did I mention, ‘Crap Alert’?

I have given up on TJ wines.

And the average customer is going to love it . .

Correct. Our bubble around here sometimes forgets that not everyone drinks Allemand, Rivers-Marie and Pontet Canet. A large powerful spending group finds great joy in these kinds of wines.

FiFTEEN dollars for Trader Joes? Talk about inflation! I thought most were from $4-8?

To TJ’s defense, though.
One may RETURN ANYTHING for a refund or exchange…including shi**y-ass wine…

Nope. That may be on account of the Charles Shaw wines, but don’t forget that they sell the Prisoner too. Most of their wines are more than $8. Very few I’d drink.

And I think Larry is right about this one - they sold a lot of Two Buck Chuck that has a very sweet and cloying profile, and they do sell Meiomi.

Fantastic thread title!

Agreed, but without a score how do we know if he liked it?

My very simple rule: Don’t buy any wine at Trader Joe’s unless you know exactly what it is.

Stopped by a local shop this Thursday night, their weekly wine tasting night. 1 Italian sparkler, one Napa Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cab/Syrah blend and then all Cab. Sparkler and white were oaky, but OK, doable, both lacking acidity and long finish, IMO. Then I got to Pinot, seemingly great fruit under a heavy dose of new oak, not sure it will integrate or not, hopefully fruit wins over. Cab/Syrah blend was even more new oak, oak juice extract. All the time I am thinking “New oak can’t get any worse”. Well, it did. Last one, Alexander Valley Cab. I almost had to get oak splinters out, that bad, with fruit a very faint voice in the background.

BUT… And there is always a but. Shop owner then tells me this is what most of his customers want and prefer, and judging by the bottles the crowd then bought off the shelf and opened that night he was on point. I finished an offering, being polite, but I just could not understand what attracts people to this style when the shop had other nicely balanced wines on the shelf. I think this board represents maybe 5% of the market, palate preferences wise, maybe even much less. What is interesting, and I was again observing, when you do pour them a nice rendition with balance and acidity they do get it and understand. Yes, tried it on Thursday, with confirmed results yet again. Just not sure what stops people from trying out as many styles as a shop offers, kind of staying in their little niche and not wanting to experiment with what else is on a shelf.

Is this just not enough education and tasting width out there, or something else? In my retail days I would brown bag a few different styles of same varietal, no name or price displayed, almost always balance winning out. Saw a good number of customers go from jammy to balance and acidity, and less oak, after a few of these tastings, and staying with that going forward. Perhaps not enough blind tastings by shops to educate people? Or lack of any, TBH.

People like what people like, this site is an exceptionally small subset of the wine drinking public…99.99999% of people don’t want to discuss it, they just want to drink it. That same % of wine is consumed within 24 hours of purchase. I appreciate both kinds of consumers.

For inexpensive at TJs I generally steer people towards imports, they can have some really solid wines vs. domestic, never profound, just quaffable.

I feel the same. I went to a local wine shop for tasting. I felt all their wines were not balanced but I heard everyone saying how great those wines were. I remember seeing one lady calling her husband over saying “honey! You GO TO try this!”

I understand everyone has their own taste but also maybe these people arent educated in “good” wine yet.

Went into a Trader Joes once and walked out in 5 minutes. Too many good wines out there for a little more money. I know there are blogs dedicated to these mass produced wines and have a large following. I would rather have people explore new regions at a one off shop and spend a few more dollars on wines the shop owner has sampled and enjoys sharing the knowledge with the consumer.

Back in early '90s, when Trader Joe’s was still a CA only company with not that many stores to fill they were incredible for wine and alcohol finds, they only needed to find small distributor closeouts to still be able to spread them across a limited number of stores and I recall buying good Bords, Brunellos and such at great prices. These days, after a huge expansion that took place since, there is absolutely no way no how they can do the same, thus bringing in now whatever fills the shelves based on their past reputation for QPR and quality. I can’t recall last time I shopped there, for anything.

Consumer education wise, seems shops are more than content with filling the shelves with whatever sells, doesn’t matter what sells as long as it does. Bottom line, really. That said, same shop owner told me that even Rombauer has changed its style lately moving to less oak and buttery feel and consumers are not happy with the move. Some consumers really love that jam and oak in reds and butter and oak in whites. The table I described above, 6-7 couples, bought 5-6 bottles off the shelf that night to share, all in the $35-50 range, with way less jammy and oaky reds on shop shelves to pick from.

Costco manages to do it. I had a Kirkland Gigondas the other night which cost the same amount as the TJ wine, and it was quite good.

I briefly tried a few TJ wines years ago and quickly moved-on.

No argument here, just a better business model and management while TJ’s has been coasting for years now.

With the exception of the Kirkland wines and big boys like KJ, La Crema, ect. not all the wines your local Costco have are available country wide. Local markets/states have different selections than other markets.

Some values can be found at TJ’s but you may have to kiss a few frogs to find your princes. And as Barry points out a great return policy.

Costco selections vary not just by state, but within same city and just a few miles apart. One newly opened up here has 3 highly rated Brunellos, some Burgs, Alsace, high end Napa and Sonoma, etc, never even mind a serious selection of Scotch and Cognac going up to $30K per bottle, 4 different Macallans, some Middleton, DogFish Head 120 Minute IPA, among other gems. Another store, just miles away, not anywhere near the selection with a different slant. I spoke with wine guys at Costco before, and even though all stores have a list they have to bring in (Apothic anyone?), per company selection, each individual store wine manager then is allowed to bring in his/her selections outside of that to dial it in for locals. Not just for drinks, but anything else, really, especially in food depts. Costco does not deal with close-outs.

TJ’s has a very different model and have been living off their very old reputation, not anywhere near what it used to be. Their wine and liquor section was all driven by close-outs in the days when they started and they had limited number of stores. But closeouts on wine and alcohol can never be large enough these days to supply all stores, so they basically stick to bulk juice to fill the shelves. And their wine guys are seemingly content with bulk juice/wines for their own labels, since that’s what people buy “Its TJ’s, so must be good!”. I do find it strange, though, that same crowd that buys TJ’s organic whatever for the supposed better quality then buys “bulk juice” of mediocre quality when much better wine can be had for essentially same money elsewhere. Bogle, Gnarly Vines and a few other Clarksburg/Lodi area labels are affordable and way better wines and QPR, IMO, and widely available. And I have no idea who in Yountville sells Cab for $2K per ton, that is ridiculous when I see prices start at $7K per ton and rapidly escalating from there. Something to chew on.