The Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay 2019

The Story

The 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’s wines will often give a hint as to what is in the bottle.

But the back label for the Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay 2019 does not say much of anything other than the general location of the vineyards. No hints like butter in the flavor profile that would give some indication of oak treatment of some sort. Nothing that will even allow you to make a guess.

The back label does tell us something about this Chardonnay and that is it is both Vegan friendly and a Kosher wine. Here is a link to an explanation of Kosher wine. A simple version is a Rabbi has to oversee parts of the winemaking process. This a wine that Trader Joe’s brought in for the Passover Holiday before we were so rudely interrupted.

I used to think, “isn’t all wine Vegan Friendly?”, after all, it is made from grapes. It turns out that the “fining” process used egg whites. To “fine” the wine is to add an agent to the wine to remove chemicals that make the wine cloudy or bitter.

The standard way to complete this was to used animal-based products, but today, mineral-based components such as volcanic ash are used. Vegan friendly isn’t the same as Natural wine, but it does use some of those practices.

I guess there was more to this $5.99 Chardonnay than I thought. The alcohol content is 13%.

The Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay 2019 Tasting Notes

The color is a pale wheat yellow. The nose is crisp and clean, there is lemon, green apple, pear, lime, a little orange blossom honey, and spice lemon cough drops.

This is a medium to light-bodied Chardonnay, fairly simple, but tasty. It starts with non-sweetened lemon/lime, tart apple, Anjou pear, and pink grapefruit.

The mid-palate does not have a lot to add, but there is tart apricot and maybe some of that salty, nutty, “on lees” thing. The acidity is balanced, the flavors get to unfold and the acid does not bite.

The Summary

• The Arroyo del Imperio Chardonnay 2019 very useable $5.99 Chardonnay.
• It may well perform better as a food wine than sipping wine, though it drinks well.
• I prefer my Chardonnay to have a more detailed production, some malolactic, some on lees, a little oak, but I can not complain about the Arroyo del Imperio. The price is right, it is Vegan approved and it is Kosher.
• With Passover in the rearview mirror, this Chardonnay is now a Tuesday night Netflix wine

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