I agree that general environmental reasons and agricultural worker safety are very import (and reason enough to avoid the wine IMO) but could you please share what your basis is for saying that there is zero risk from pesticide residue? Can you cite a source or does your professional experience (I’m not sure what you do for a living) give you any insight into this? I ask because frankly, I am somewhat skeptical. It’s my understanding that wine grapes get a particularly heavy dose of chemicals. Participating in this thread has lead me question my automatic assumption that these chemicals are indeed bad for us, but I would want to see something scientific on the matter one way or the other.
For the most part, IMO, TJs does a lousy job in selecting their wines.
I do love some of their food selections. . . .
TTT
I’m not buying wine or fresh produce at TJ’s (frozen food, yes), but I, too, would be more concerned about the health risks of the former than those of the latter, and I’m certainly concerned about the environmental impact. Of course, that’s not based on any data. I know the OP wasn’t just about Charles Shaw, but out of the couple of those I’ve tried, one had so much volatile acidity that it was undrinkable to the 4 people who tried it. I wouldn’t even taste it because of the way it smelled. I didn’t try a second bottle of the same wine, but it didn’t seem oxidized, just riddled with VA.
Yup…totally agree on that point, Paul. Their wine selection is based wholly on marketing to folks whose bottom-line
is strictly the bottom-line. The same criteria doesn’t seem to apply so much to their foods. They have some
really good/interesting stuff…and at, of course, very attractive prices.
But there is, somebody, hiding in the background, wheeling & dealing, to come up w/ some of those VTJS and
TJ’s Reserve wines, who must know sumthin.
Tom
I don’t have much experience with TJ’s own wines, but you can find some excellent deals there. For instance, the Puget Sound area stores carry a couple of Rulo wines that are great QPR at list price much less TJ’s even better price.
Now we’re getting way off course, but what’s wrong with TJ’s produce or chicken? I’m actually serious, has something occurred? I just bought some organic chicken breasts and veggies there 
Btw, I’m not a TJs bull or anything, just was curious about whether folks had had good experiences with any of the wines. I’ll have to try the Blason.
I have not had 2 buck chuck for 10 years but when the label was first brought back there was huge variation in the wines. Sometimes the chard could be pretty decent, other times just cheap swill. Its amazing they have managed to keep the price unchanged after all these years and that still sell mountains (literally) of the stuff.
The organic chicken is good. Other than their greens, I don’t particularly like their produce. They used to carry Niman Ranch pork but they don’t anymore. I considered buying some ground beef there for a picnic (to avoid having to go to my butcher) but I put it back on the shelf after I read the label and went to my local butcher. Product of: “New Zealand, USA, Argentina” and one other country that I cant remember.
Charles Shaw is the government cheese of wines- potable, sure, but that’s about it. I have seldom found their other wines to be interesting, so good luck there. I would be fishing in different waters.
I have never been impressed with TJ’s produce. That being said we live in California and have options
Vintjs SB is good.
I’ve recently had the 2 Buck Chuck Cab a couple times as a Trader Joe’s recently opened here. It may be in my head, but I had two hangovers/headaches.
I can’t really prove it to you, particularly since you can’t prove a negative (i.e. that pesticide residue in wine won’t hurt you), you can only fail to prove that will hurt you. There are articles claiming this and that out there which you could read with a Google search if you want.
My father has been a leading national expert on pesticides for the last 40 years or so. He isn’t a political person, and he’s neither some kind of shill for big agriculture nor some kind of left wing environmental alarmist, he’s just a serious man of science and highly respected in his field. And he’d tell you that it’s not anywhere on the radar of things you should worry about as far as your health. The biggest reasons are (1) the pesticides used commercially these days have very little chronic toxicity to humans, (2) the pesticides authorized for use these days persist a very short time after application before they break down into other compounds, and (3) the quantity of exposure to use as the consumer of small quantities of fruits and vegetables is so tiny, and to whatever small extent these compounds have chronic toxicity (e.g. could cause cancer or things like that), you would have to have very large exposure for a long period. As they say in chemistry, “the dose makes the poison.” Everything is bad for you at some level of exposure, but nothing is bad for you at absolutely any level of exposure.
Anyway, at the end of the day, we all take our own counsel and go with our own instincts, and I don’t have any problem with you choosing to eat organic or to avoid certain kinds of wine, it’s your life and your money. But that is just to briefly explain the reason for my statement, since you asked.
Have a good weekend, Berry, and may we both enjoy it free of any Charles Shaw, each for our own set of reasons. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Thanks for the explanation. If you ever happen to get on the topic with your dad and he can recommend any good papers on the subject from this point of view, I would be very interested to read.
Aussie Shiraz?
After nearly five years working at Trader Joe’s, in the wine “department”, I came to accept that 90% of the wines there are mediocre. They sell because they’re cheap and because the general public drinks a hell of a lot of mediocre wine. Occasionally some really interesting stuff would come down the pipeline, but I always figured the buyers in Monrovia (or Massachusetts) were basically focused on getting the cheapest stuff possible, then spinning some cute story about it.
I take much more pleasure in supporting my local wine shops than an 8+ billion dollar per-year company.
While I agree that TJ’s wine selections are largely uninspired, you can occasionally find some good QPR wines. Most tend to be one off type of selections where they get a lot of something, sell it cheap, and it disappears never to reappear. The one exception of late are the La Ferme Julien bottlings (there’s a red, a white and rose). I’d read that it’s the same wine as La Vieille Ferme done as a private label, and I’ve also read that it’s a separate bottling but done by the La Vieille Ferme/Perrin folks. In any event, at $6 they’re good wines. Profound? No, but in non-wine geek circles, they do well and as a wine geek it’s pretty good.
I agree that their wines are really marketed to the general public and not to wine geeks.
This is the crux of TJs. They are a business that succeeds by delivering customers a reasonably unique product at a low price point. This works well for a lot of their branded foods because it doesn’t really cost much more to be different in that sphere. They just have to source it, produce it in sufficiently large quantities, and brand it. When it’s no longer viable/profitable, it disappears–many of us know the pain of a TJs favorite vanishing mysteriously.
With wine, though, the price level for any degree of character is simply higher. It’s higher than TJs wants to price it, it’s higher than the consumers are willing to pay. TJs does well bringing in unique cheeses, cereals, prepared meals, etc. that are of good quality at a competitive price. But unique wine doesn’t fit their pricing structure.
Ditto. I’ve only had it once - about 10 years ago. Drank 1/2 a bottle before/with dinner - had a migrane in the morning and had to call in sick.
Tons of variation? I would think that if a wine is non-vintage and mass produced that would allow by far the LEAST variation. It’s like house champagnes, it varies a bit based upon the core vintage, but blending allows you to control for style much moreso than with a single vintage wine. Charles Shaw is, in fact, terrible, but at that price it should be expected. I don’t mean to say that it is flawed, but to me the cardinal sin is to taste generic. These wines are the definition of generic.
The Muscadet is okay I guess. A TJ’s has been opened very close to my house, and when I need a cheap white I’ve grabbed it a few times. It’s okay for summer parties where it can be slammed very cold. It makes decent white sangria, but there’s something not quite on about it either. The acid doesn’t feel quite right somehow. They have a Vouvray, Lecheneau I think, that is better for the same money IIRC, though it has a touch of RS. I tried the Comique Jest (I think that’s it) CA-white rhone, and it seemed well made but I tend to find those S Rhone whites too flabby and this was definitely a plump wine, but it seemed a really good value if you liked the style.
For the most part though I find that TJ has a very limited usefulness. I’m not into pre-prepared foods, and I find most of their fresh food, esp. produce to be pretty lousy. They are good for things like crackers, a couple of juices, some basic cheeses, trail mix type things for kids, and raw sugar. It’s a very small niche of items that I will get there.
This is a good call. It is a decent wine for those of us in the geek crowd, and a big crowd pleaser to the ‘general wine public’. Seems rather consistent year to year also.