CheapWineFinder Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Grifone Sangiovese 2018-TJ's Italian 2 Euro Carlo Wine This is a wine that Trader Joe's sells for $3.99. It has over 3 years of aging and they shipped it from Italy, and it still sells for under four bucks. This is something that you use to clean engine parts not for wine that you drink, right? Nope, it tastes good. Not complicated, but good tasting. Read all about it on...

Send us Fan Mail Sauvignon de Seguin Bordeaux Blanc 2020-TJ's $7.99 Sauv Blanc From France This is a wine that French people drink. Chateau Seguin has a link on their website to a French wine seller where this Sauvignon Blanc sells for 4.9 Euros or less than six bucks. Decanter magazine gave it 92 points! But, who cares, Cheapwinefinder says it's awesome. Check out www.cheapwinefinder.co...

Send us Fan Mail Sobon Estates Old Vine Amador County Zinfandel 2019-A Delicious Value Zin A tasty Zinfandel from the gold rush country! California is a treasure trove of excellent Zinfandel regions. Lodi,  Sonoma, Central Coast, Napa, and Amador County offer excellent and individual takes on ZInfandel wine. I say, explore them all. Check out www.cheapwinefinder and listen to the podcast for all t...

Send us Fan Mail Vigilance Red Hills AVA Sauvignon Blanc 2020-An Excellent California Sauv Blanc Red Hills AVA is inside the Lake County AVA just north of Napa. For years they sold their grapes to other wineries. Today, excellent wineries are making terrific wine in Lake County. Vigilance is one of the brands from Shannon Ridge, a family-owned winery that is sustainably farmed and will be 100% cer...

Send us Fan Mail Trader Joe's Platinum Reserve Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2020-Time To Look For Bargains. This  Pinot Noir is a little too hot for my tastes, 14.5% alcohol. But I think it is intended for the Restaraunt crowd, and some high alcohol content will not be noticeable when paired with food. I am a Pinot Noir sipper, and I want my Pinot delicate and complicated. The extra alcoh...

Send us Fan Mail Dancing Flame Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2019-$6.99 From Aldi 2022 has us back on the cheap wine beat. This is a seven-buck Cab Sauv from Chile. I got used to the fancy but cheap Cabernet Sauvignon  I drank in December 2021, so I was not entirely taken by this Cab. But it is a pretty reasonable $7 Red wine. I got a little jaded by going upscale last month. Check out www.cheapwinef...

Send us Fan Mail Trader Joe's Diamond Reserve Stags Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon 2020-$20 And Worth Every Penny Twenty buck Trader Joe's wine, what is this world coming to? There is a story about this wine that should be very interesting for all value-priced wine drinkers. Since I just wrote the story and review on www.cheapwinefinder.com and recorded a podcast about this wine, there...

Send us Fan Mail Meiomi California Pinot Noir NV-The New Meiomi Meiomi Pinot Noir is a hugely successful wine, with more than 7,000,000 bottles sold a year. Constellation Brands bought this wine in 2015, and there have been changes made to this Pinot Noir. Is it still what you know and expect? Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and listen to the podcast for all the details!!! Check us out at www.ch...

Send us Fan Mail Argyle Willamette Valley Brut 2017-Champagne Quality At Half The Price It is December 2021, and Champagne is in short supply; instead of Bubbly sales, Champagne prices are higher. What to do, what to do, what to do. Well, where do they grow excellent Chardonnay and Pinot Noir? Why Willamette Valley, of course! So, does a vintage-dated, estate-grown, Bubbly with three years of age...

Send us Fan Mail Hwy 5 Pinot Noir 2020-Aldi $5 Party Wine Ok, so you think five dollars is too cheap for wine. In Europe, where they drink wine with the meal, they seldom spend more than two or three Euros on a wine. 2 or 3 Euros equals $5. And Aldi, Trader Joe's, and Costco wines are typically 40% less than comparable retail wine shop wines. So, is this wine too cheap? No. Check out www.chea...

Send us Fan Mail Trader Joe's Reserve Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon 2019-$25 for $9.99? My cousin's next-door neighbor's uncle has a friend who read on the internet that this is a restaurant wine of note that because of Covid in 2020 and 2021 didn't sell and, with a new vintage coming, had to be sold off. And Trader Joe's stepped in and bought and bought the whole vinta...

Send us Fan Mail Trader Joe's Platinum Reserve Sonoma Brut-Worth The Extra Five Bucks? CWF reviewed the Trader Joe's Reserve North Coast Brut Bubbly at $9.99, and we wondered if the Sonoma County version could be worth $5 more. That extra five bucks put it in competition with the California version of elite French Champagne House Bubbly, like Chandon, Pipper, and Mumms. Well, the answer...

Send us Fan Mail Ronan By Clinet Bordeaux Merlot 2016-Expensive Merlot for $10 Chateau Clinet is THE Pomerol estate. Ronan is the name of their managing director. Pomerol does Merlot. This is 100% Merlot, not from vineyards in Pomerol, but made by the same team that makes the $150 to $350  wines.  And I found it for $8.99; this shouldn't be this cheap. Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and li...

Send us Fan Mail Mud House Central Otago Pinot Noir 2019-NZ Isn't Just Sauvignon Blanc Excellent Affordable Pinot Noir is a joy, and that is precisely what New Zealand Pinot  Noir offers. I found this single-vineyard Central Otago Pinot for $15, and it is a real bargain. Central Otago is on the southern half of New Zealand's South Island, Marlborough, where most of the Sauvignon Blanc is...

Send us Fan Mail Cheapwinefinder Drinks The Aldi 7 Days of New Years Import Bubbly Collection 2021 Chateau Quake and Domaine Dave sample 7 Aldi imported Bubbly. We liked some better than others but enjoyed giving them all a try. It turns out that cheap Aldi imported Bubbly can be very good. Check out the podcast and find out all the details!!! Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com or email us at...

Send us Fan Mail Lovely You Chardonnay NV 2021-Low Calorie and Low Alcohol There was a time when inexpensive wine was probably horrible. But not anymore; cheap wine typically rocks. And "diet" healthy wine was a wine to be endured, not enjoyed. Again, not anymore! Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and listen to the podcast for all the details. Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com or e...

Send us Fan Mail Ernest Rapeneau Champagne-Trader Joe's Real Deal Excellent Bubbly Cheap Bubbly equals Good Bubbly? Yes! This is a real deal Champagne from a Champagne House that has been in Champagne since 1901. And you can buy a half bottle at TJ's for $11 to check it out for yourself. No need to drink fancy Champagne, just because. Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and listen to the p...

Send us Fan Mail Ile de Conas Le Rosé 2020-$7.99 TJ's- A taste of Summer in Winter Ile de Conas is Paul Mas first Estate in the Languedoc region of France. Wine Enthusiast Magazine awarded Paul Mas winery French winery of the year 2021. The packaging for this Rosé is exceptional, the bottle has silk-screened flowers that grow on the Estate, and it has a glass bottle top. No cork. This is a Ro...

Send us Fan Mail Ugly Sweater Red Blend 2021 Edition- But My Favorite Aunt Knitted It! I am no fan of Holiday Bottle wine. It sells for only one month but lasts for years. Who would put a decent wine in a bottle that only sells in December? Usually, they put sweet German Red wine in the Holiday bottles that they can't sell otherwise. But the Ugly Sweater Red Blend 2021 Edition- But My Favorit...

Send us Fan Mail Louis Pommery Brut NV-$20-Thinking French-Drinking California I was about to buy a $14.99 Trader Joe's Reserve Sonoma Sparkling wine when I remembered there are Napa/Sonoma outposts of celebrated Champagne Houses. The Louis Pommery sells for $20, and it's Champagne big brother is CHampagne Pommery, the creator of Brut Champagne. I do not know a damn thing about Trader Jo...

Send us Fan Mail Bortolomiol 70th Anniversary DOCG Brut Nature Prosecco 2017-Try Vintage Prosecco Prosecco is the number 1 selling Sparkling wine in the world! Champagne makes more money. Is non-vintage supermarket Prosecco the best they can do? Nope, check out the vintage-dated Prosecco's; they can be single-vineyard, extremely high-end wines that do not sell for an extravagant price.  Check...

Send us Fan Mail Buttery Barrel Chardonnay 2020-$7 Aldi-Buttery But Not Too Buttery Ok, I said I was going to go into why I bought this wine and then got distracted (look a squirrel). But no problem, the things I did talk about did describe this Chardonnay, and I didn't forget to explain my purchase in the www.cheapwinefinder.com review so that counts for something. So, my mistakes are a good...

Send us Fan Mail Trader Joe's Reserve North Coast Brut Rosé Sparkling Wine Will a Champagne by another name taste just as sweet? Tell Willie the Shake that modern Bubbly rocks. Making good Bubbly was difficult back in the day, and the folks in Champagne figured out the key to the puzzle. Today the technology even things out, and ten-dollar Bubbly can satisfy. Face it, when you drink Bubbly, w...

Send us Fan Mail Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel 2019-Affordable Luxury In the last six weeks of the year, we at Cheapwinefinder start to go upscale. Tuesday night bargain wines are not as important, Something nice to open for friends and family is the way to go. And of course, we can not pop the top on a $65 wine; we need to find bang-for-the-buck! This may be Seghesio's "entry-level&q...

Send us Fan Mail Upper Eden Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir 2019-$12.99 Of Pinot Noir Goodness Check out www.cheapwinefinder.com and listen to the podcast for all the details!!! Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com or email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com