I am not usually a huge fan of the Kirkland, Costco-branded wine bottlings. I find them to be hit or miss, occasionally quite good, but often insipid or even undrinkable. This one was a very pleasant surprise and one of the best two Kirkland-branded wines I’ve ever tried. (The other was the 2010 Kirkland Chateauneuf from a couple of years back.)
For $8.69, this is a stellar QPR, and as good as any Chianti Classico Riserva available for under about $16-$17. It’s not the presence of anything unique or interesting about the wine that makes it so nice, so much as a lack of any unpleasant aspects, giving it an extremely high drinkability factor rare in $8 wines. In other words, not too much oak and not too rich or extracted on the one hand, and not too thin, lean, metallic, or green/herbal on the other. Fruited and oaked enough to clearly be “Riserva” (rather than simply CC), but with sufficient acidity, this is just very pleasant, drinkable, versatile, food-friendly stuff. At $8.69, it’s an easy case purchase as a guilt-free pizza wine!
I forgot to mention in my original post that it appears (from the back label) to be Villa Cafaggio wine, either “declassified” by them, or produced by them separately for Costco. I have always found Villa Cafaggio’s Chianti Classico Riserva to be a very solid wine, and this seems pretty much in line with what that wine would present in the 2011 vintage, although I have to assume that this may be from their younger vines or sourced outside the Cafaggio’s normal estate vineyards.
Thanks - I’ll have to try this. The hit or miss on these Kirkland wines has mostly been “miss” for me, so I usually don’t even bother anymore. However, the only one I bit on recently is the DOCG Prosecco, which is great for $6.99.
I just picked up a case of it last night, but obviously haven’t opened one yet. It does say on the bottle that it is from Cafaggio vineyards, which helps. As we are heavy consumers of Italian food (for the usual reasons), we also gulp down a lot of Chianti and various other Sangiovese.
I’d love to see an ongoing thread on the various Kirkland wines…So far the only “exceptional” values I’ve found have been the Chateauneuf du Pape and this CCR. The Rose Champagne is pretty nice too.
The regular Champagne is decent enough, but not good enough to consider it a great QPR…I’d say it’s just “on a par” with other $20-ish sparklers. I once tried the Kirkland New Zealand Sauv Blanc and it was undrinkable–insipid in its lack of acidity and slightly sweet…
As mentioned, I’ve found the $20 normal champagne to be decent, solid and enjoyable, but not necessary a “standout deal” as compared to similarly priced sparklers. If I remember correctly, it is produced by Manuel Janisson. For a while I was a bit more enthusiastic about it, but after drinking through a number of bottles, I found a higher-than-normal rate of TCA-tainted (corked) bottles, and also found that it was just a tiny bit sweeter than my preference. I’ve also found a couple of Cavas and even Italian sparklers (think Sparkling Nerello Mascalese) that I prefer at that price point…
Last summer I saw a 6 Liter bottle of 2010 Fontodi Flaccianello on the shelves of Costco for $599. This is a STEAL (probably a mistake) as it should have been closer to $1500. Unfortunately, it was at the Phoenix Arizona Costco, and it was probably 85 degrees inside the store and 116 degrees outside the store (and I didn’t know how long the bottle had been there), and I was on vacation with no easy way to “check” a 6 liter bottle on the plane (and you certainly can’t “carry it on” after 9-11). I didn’t feel like gambling $600 on a bottle (and figuring out how to get it home to Dallas) when it was likely already partially damaged or cooked from its stay inside the hottest Costco I’ve ever been inside in my life…If I had a decent need for a 6-Liter bottle in the short term, I’d have considered it, but that’s the kind of bottle you save for at least 15-20 years…
I bought a bottle of the CCR a couple of weeks ago. I keep a couple of bottles of basic red and white around for cooking and I’m always picking up different wines to see which ones work. I opened it today for a recipe and it’s pretty damn good. I’m going to go back for a couple more.
We picked up a couple of these as well, and while it might not knock too many socks off, what you have here is a solid baseline CCR for <$9. Certainly the most worthwhile of any of the Kirkland-branded wines I’ve tried thus far…and I’m sure we’ll be going back for more at some point.
Fair question, although there are a surprising number that do pop up at Costco in this ballpark or lower…I’ve had CCRs of all of the following at around $16-$17 or less–Tenuta di Nozzole, Castello Banfi, Castello di Gabbiano, Maialina and Rodano. (Last year, Costco had the Maialina Chianti Classico Riserva for $13.99/bottle, and it was a STEAL, and an even better QPR than this Kirkland CCR at $8…)
I was hesitant to go up to $20-$22 because that price point opens up the vast majority of the most well known producers of CCRs–Monsanto, Fontodi, San Felice, Frescobaldi, etc.
I don’t think the Frescobaldi Nippozanno (if spelled right) is CCR, I think it is Rufina, but it is still good stuff. Costco has, at least in the past year, Monsanto for $17.99, and I’ve had that with a truckload of my wife’s various Italian dishes. The standard San Felice (non Reserva) is a pretty good every day pasta chaser as well. I’m not too sure that the Monsanto wasn’t $18.99 at Costco now, but I still have most of a case of it. The Banfi Reserva is about $14 and not bad, but $3 more for the Monsanto is worth it to me. I wish they would stock up on a good, everyday Barbera.
You are correct the Nipozzano is Chianti Rufina Riserva not CCR (but is quite good, and actually at Costco now for (I believe) $17.99. To my taste the $8.99 Kirkland CCR is significantly more enjoyable than the Banfi CCR (at $14-$17, which as you say is not bad, but sometimes shows too modern (oak and slightly over-extracted fruit relative to the quality of the fruit)!
I also inadvertantly referred to Fontodi in my post and meant to say Felsina. (Fontodi’s CCR is way out there in price, at $60+ these days, while Felsina’s CCR is still a very reasonable $22, and in good vintages would have to be among the “best in class” for this style of Chianti (by which I mean to exclude the much more muscular style of wines such as Felsina’s Rancia and Fontodi’s Vigna de Sorbo).