The Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Santa Barbara County Chardonnay 2020 is a $7.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive made for TJ’s by ABJ Wines from Geyserville, California. According to the California Wine COLA, ABJ Wines is August Briggs, Jr. There is an August Briggs WInery in Napa that August no longer owns, it looks like this is…
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The Lindeman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay 2021 just may be the best cheap retail wine available. I found it at a major Chicago wine and spirits shop for $3.99. Cheapwinefinder has reviewed every vintage since 2015 except 2020. I keep expecting the quality to fall off, to be disappointed, but it never happens. And this is…
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The Stormchaser Charging Chardonnay 2020 is a wine I found for $6.69 at Aldi. This is a wine made for Aldi by Precept Wine, the largest privately held wine company in the Northwest. Their brands include Gruet, House Wine, Canoe Ridge, and many more. Aldi’s wine selection has been stagnant for months, to transportation issues,…
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The Hook or Crook Cellars Lodi Chardonnay 2020 is currently available at Costco for under $12, but will soon be available across the country at wine retail outlets. This Chardonnay is produced by Thomas Allen Wine Estates of the Lodi AVA. They produce 12,000,000 bottles of wine a year all for other major wine brands….
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The Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay 2020 is the “entry-level” Chardonnay from Wente Vineyards, the oldest continuously operated family-owned winery in America (founded in 1883). They survived World Wars, the Depression, and Prohibition, and their story is of great significance to the entire wine industry. In 1912 Ernest Wente started working on grapevine cutting from a…
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The J Lohr Riverstone Chardonnay 2019 is a sustainably farmed wine from J Lohr Estate, family-owned vineyards, and winery in operation since the 1970s. This Chardonnay is sourced from their estate Arroyo Seco vineyards. They have been making the Riverstone Chardonnay for over 30 years. The Arroyo Seco AVA is located in the foothills of…
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The William Wright Monterey Chardonnay 2019 is a $6.99 Aldi exclusive, produced for them by Scheid Vineyards located in Greenfield, Monterey County in the California Central Coast AVA. Scheid is a large family-owned winery and this wine does show up in their portfolio on their website. The back label says “This classic Chardonnay was sourced…
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The Mon Fére Chardonnay 2018 is a brand and winery from Taub Family Selections, which are mainly importers but have their own vineyards and wineries. They have a very extensive portfolio of wines. This Chardonnay is sourced from grapes grown in Mendocino, Monterey, and Lodi. That is a textbook example of why the Chardonnay shows…
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The 19 Crimes Martha’s Chard 2020 is a California Chardonnay from the Australian wine label 19 Crimes. The 19 Crimes referenced in the brand name are the number of offenses that would get a criminal in Great Britain deported to the Australian penal colony. The label embraces Australia’s heritage with a photo and a short…
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The Argyle Willamette Valley Brut 2017 is a vintage-dated small-batch estate-grown Sparkling wine made in the Champagne style. Argyle was founded in 1987 and produced exceptional Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Reisling, and Sparkling wines. This Bubbly consists of 55% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, and 15% Pinot Meunier. The Chardonnay was sourced from the Knudsen Vineyard in…
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The Quarter Cut Bourbon Barrel Chardonnay 2019 is a $9.99 Aldi exclusive wine, and it is part of a line of wines aged in bourbon barrels and wine barrels. Aldi owns the Quarter Cut name trademark, but according to the California COLA website, the wine is produced by Fetzer of Hopland, California. Fetzer has a…
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The Hwy 5 Chardonnay 2020 is a $4.99 Aldi wine sourced from vineyards in California. The back label says this wine was produced by a company located in Modesto, California. That typically indicates that some entity of E & J Gallo had a hand in the production. There is no technical production information available for…
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The Trader Joe’s Reserve Napa Valley Chardonnay 2019 is a $9.99 Trader Joe’s exclusive. This wine seems to come from a producer, ABJ WInes, who I believe is owned by someone who sold their Napa vineyard and winery to produce custom-label wines. This person has extensive connections in Napa, and that is a good sign…
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The Tanner Park Carneros Chardonnay 2019 is $9.99 for Trader Joe’s wine. In doing what research you can do on a Trader Joe’s wine, it seems that the Tanner Park brand may be an older defunct brand, and Trader Joe’s is reusing the name. This Chardonnay uses grapes grown on the Sonoma side of the…
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The Louis Jadot 2020 Mâcon-Villages Chardonnay is sourced from vineyards in the Mâconnais region of Burgundy in France. Chardonnay is THE grape of this area in southern Burgundy. For reference, Beaujolais is the southernmost region of Burgundy and Champagne in the north. Loius Jadot has been in the wine business since the 1850s. They traditionally purchased…
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The Chateau Ste Michelle Chardonnay 2019 is sourced from various vineyards in the Columbia Valley of Washington State. This is a wine that you should find for around ten bucks; I purchased a bottle for $8.99 on sale. The Columbia Valley comprises the vast majority of Washington’s vineyards, and there are 11 different sub-AVAs inside…
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The Lindeman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay 2019 is a perennial CheapWineFinder favorite. This is a wine that has been around since the early 1980s. Lindeman’s was one of Australia’s first wineries founded in the 1840s, but the winery no longer exists, and Lindeman’s is a brand wine. The leading wine seller in Chicago and the surrounding…
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The Domaine Jean Bousquet Brut Rose is a non-vintage Sparkling wine, 95% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay sourced from Estate vineyards in the foothills of the Tupungato Mountain in the Uco Valley of Mendoza in Argentina. Tupungato is one of the tallest mountains in the Americas, and the vineyards are situated at 4,000 feet. Domaine…
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The Poppy Santa Lucia Highlands Chardonnay 2017 is sourced from Poppy’s Highland vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands sub-AVA inside the Monterey AVA, which is inside the Central Coast AVA of California. The Santa Lucia Highlands is exactly what the name suggests; it is located in the foothills of the Santa Lucia coastal mountains. This…
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The Los Vascos Chardonnay 2020 is sourced from the estate vineyards of Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) property in the Colchagua Valley of Chile. This is a wine that is often available for under ten dollars, and the 2020 vintage received 90 points from a leading wine critic. You would think that Domaines Barons de Rothschild…
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Riddle Edna Valley Chardonnay 2018 is a $6.99 Trader Joe’s wine sourced from vineyards in the Edna Valley AVA inside San Luis Obispo County, inside the Central Coast AVA of California. Edna Valley is to the east of the Santa Lucia Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean provides a cool climate ideal for Chardonnay vines. As…
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The McBride Sisters Hawke’s Bay Brut Rose is a non-vintage blend of 64% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay, and 6% Merlot vineyards located in Hawke’s Bay growing region on the North Island in New Zealand. The Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay are iconic grapes used in Champagne wines, so the uncommon addition of Merlot is an…
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The Ashokawna Russian River Chardonnay 2018 is an $8.99 Aldi exclusive. The Russian River Valley AVA is in western Coastal Sonoma County. The Sonoma Coast AVA is west of the Russian River Valley AVA. The Russian River Valley runs north/south parallel to the coast. The river originally flowed east/ west until a cataclysmic event thousands…
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The Exquisite Collection Chardonnay 2019 is a $7.99 ALDI exclusive sourced from vineyards in California and that is the extent of what I know about this wine. The Exquisite Collection line of wine is basically the ALDI equivalent to Trader Joe’s Reserve wines. Special wine deals happened upon that year, and they pass the savings…
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The Veuve Monsigny Champagne Rosé is a $19.99 Aldi exclusive, 65% Pinot Noir, 25% Pinot Meunier, and 10% Chardonnay sourced from vineyards across the Champagne region in France. I imagine when a lot of folks see a store brand twenty buck Champagne they figure that there is no way it can be very good. Most…
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