CheapWineFinder Podcast

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Tourner Sparkling Brut is a $6.99 ALDI exclusive produced in the Traditional Method from grapes grown in California. And that is just about everything I know about this Bubbly. The back label has a few words concerning tasting notes, but nothing that would give clues as to the grapes used. The number one important detail about this wine, at least to me, is that is mad...

Send us Fan Mail The Podcast StoryOk, with all the turmoil 2020 has brought us, complaining about the lack of useful information available on a wine bottle label seems a bit shallow. But after being cooped up in the Cheapwinefinder Covid-19 bunker all these months any distraction from current events is a welcome respite. So, listen to Dave rant about how wine labeling regulations make finding usef...

Send us Fan Mail VINTJS Sonoma Coast Pinot NoirThe StoryThe VINTJS Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir 2018 is a $6.99 Trader Joe's exclusive sourced, like the name says, from the Sonoma Coast AVA located along the Pacific Coast of Sonoma County. The AVA border goes far enough inland to include some of the Russian River AVA.I was in Trader Joe's looking for a different wine, but when I saw a sub-sev...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Opaline Sparkling Pinot Noir Brut Rose is a non-vintage $7.99 Trader Joe's wine imported from France. That is the bulk of the information concerning this Bubbly. The label says Product of France which does not narrow wines origin down to any great extent. The Opaline does have a very nice bottle. The glass is prism-cut and the shape reminds me of the type of bott...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Hyland Estates Old Vine Pinot Noir 2018 is sourced from the Hyland Vineyard that was planted in 1971. The Hyland Vineyard is situated in the foothills of Oregon's Coast Range inside the McMinnville sub-AVA of the greater Willamette Valley AVA.It is one of the oldest and finest vineyards in the Willamette Valley. The vineyard came first and then later the Hyland E...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewurztraminer 2018 is sourced from vineyards in the Monterey AVA of California's Central Coast AVA. Shaly Loam is a type of soil associated with farmland since we are not told exactly where the vineyards are mentioning the type of soil without a vineyard location is being very specific and vague at the same time. Fetzer is an interesting wine c...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Petit Bourgeois Loire Sauvignon Blanc 2019 is an IGP Valle de Loire wine (the back label calls this a "table wine" which is a designation below IGP). It is the entry-level Sauvignon Blanc from Famille Bourgeois and winemaking family that has been producing wine in the Loire Valley for ten generations. They specialize in the Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé regions...

Send us Fan Mail The PodcastWith this podcast, we at Cheapwinefinder.com discuss getting started drinking French wine. With all the different wine regions and classifications, it can get very confusing. We try to keep it simple, most of the grapes used are familiar to American wine drinkers, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc. But the producers and the differen...

Send us Fan Mail The PodcastCheapwinefinder Talks about Trader Joe's & Aldi Wine. With this podcast, we explain why we often choose wines from Trader Joe's and Aldi. Why we like most of their wines, why they are different from retail wine shops, and what they are so inexpensive. I won't write much more since this a podcast (18 minutes long), so listen up and enjoy! Check us out...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Antoine Delaune Beaujolais Villages 2018 is a $6.99 ALDI import exclusive. ALDI (both ALDI North Trader Joe's in America and ALDI South) is a German company with stores thru out Europe the US and Australia and has over 10,000 stores which give them tremendous buying power. In Europe, Great Britain, and Ireland they are the bang for the buck wine shop. Their wines...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryLoudenotte Pinot Noir 2018The Loudenotte Pinot Noir Pays d'Oc 2018 is a $6.99 Trader Joe's import exclusive sourced from grapes from the south of France. The Oc in Pays d'Oc refers to Occitania which runs from the border with Spain to the Rhone Valley to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. The wines from this region are designated as IGP wines which is a st...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Kingsley Sparkling Brut Rose' is a $6.99 Trader Joe's Sparkling wine made in the Traditional Method by Rack and Riddle. That is all I know about this Bubbly, but that might be enough. The first thing to note is that $6.99 for a Traditional Method Sparkling wine is crazy cheap. The Traditional Method is the production technique used in Champagne. After the wi...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Bogle Phantom Red Blend 2016 is a blend of 51.5% Petit Sirah and 48.5% Zinfandel sourced from vineyards in several California vineyard regions. Bogle Vineyards was named 2019 Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast magazine. Bogle is located in the Clarksburg AVA which is south and a little east of Napa in the delta region of San Pablo Bay. The San Francisco Bay is on t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Quake chats clones, guitars, Alexa, and Chardonnay - the Wente Single Vineyard (Riva Ranch) Chardonnay 2018.Wente is the First Family of Chardonnay, and they're doing something pretty cool - a virtual wine tasting app for your Amazon Echo or Google Home device. So why should we tell you all about this wine when Alexa can do it for us? Pour yourself a glass &am...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe High Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2018 is a single vineyard (Betsy's Vineyard) located in the High Valley sub-AVA of the Lake County AVA which directly north of Napa. High Valley is one of Shannon Ridge's family of wines. Shannon Ridge is owned by Clay Shannon who farms several thousand acres of vineyards. They use 50% of the grapes for their own wines and the oth...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we chat with the folks over at Everledger about the emerging wine tech that not only prevents fraud, but can create a direct relationship between producers & us winos! Did you know one third of the booze out there is fake or mislabeled? There's such stringent rules in place to be sure a producer can label their wines as coming from somewhere, but what abo...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Trader Joe's Reserve Anderson Valley Pinot Noir is a $9.99 Trader Joe's exclusive. Anderson Valley is located in coastal Mendocino and is situated between two mountain ranges. Two more things to note are this the 2018 vintage and is Lot #201.Anderson Valley has a growing reputation for the production of fine Pinot Noir wines. I noticed that the alcohol level...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Trader Joe's Grand Reserve Napa Chardonnay 2018 Lot 85 is a $12.99 Trader Joe's exclusive. Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer says "expect to pay twice as much elsewhere for a similarly pedigreed Napa Chardonnay." And they called this wines producer their winery partner. That sounds about right, if a winery from Napa releases a Chardonnay under their...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryPPE, six-foot social distancing, lockdown, masks, wash your hands every time you touch something, cross the street when you see someone walking towards you, so much for your favorite pub or restaurant, and stand in line to enter the grocery store, the so-called new reality. Well, we have our XLR microphones and our FaceTime cameras, Quake and Dave decided to do a long-dis...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Simi Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 is 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Merlot, 3% Petite Sirah, 1% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Merlot. All but the Petite Sirah are grapes approved to be included in the Red wine blends of Bordeaux. Petite Sirah is also a French grape, not Bordeaux, and never was widely planted in France but has found a home in California. The bulk of t...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Proyecto la Garnacha Salvaje del Moncayo translates to the Wild Garnacha Project of Moncayo. The concept behind this wine is simple. Find old, neglected Garnacha vineyards and bring them back to life. The Moncayo is one the largest mountain peaks (Pyrenees) along the Elbro Valley in the district of Aragon in northeast Spain. Further north and a little west along the E...

Send us Fan Mail The Podcast StoryWe thought we would try our hand at a ZOOM webcam get together that has become one of the main ways to stay in touch in these days of self-isolation. So the Cheapwinefinder Lockdown Virtual Wine Tasting Podcast was born. The concept was Mike and Dave would each pick up a Sauvignon Blanc to taste test alone together. Mike grabbed the R Collection Sauvignon Lot 4. T...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Parasphere Sonoma Zinfandel 2014 is a $7.99 Trader Joe's mystery wine. There are several things here that do not add up to an aged Sonoma County Zinfandel for under eight bucks. The first point is obvious, Sonoma Zinfandel with 6 years of age selling for $7.99 does not exist in the wild. Generally speaking, the difference between a ten-dollar Red wine and a twent...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Santa Julia Reserva Malbec 2018 is 100% Malbec sourced from Estate vineyards in the Uco Valley in the southwest corner of the Mendoza Valley in Argentina. Santa Julia is one of the labels produced by Familia Zuccardi Estates who have been in the wine business since the 1950s. Santa Julia was started in 1982 and Julia in the name is the founders' only daughter. Th...

Send us Fan Mail The StoryThe Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay 2019 is a $5.99 Trader Joe's wine sourced from vineyards in the foothills of the Andes in the Central Valley of Chile. There usually isn't much of a story to tell for six buck Trader Joe's Chardonnay. There is no technical information available concerning the production of this wine. The back label of inexpensive Trader Joe...