If you’re a budget wine drinker, chances are that you’re already more than familiar with Trader Joe’s Charles Shaw wines, better known as Two-Buck Chuck as it’s good wine that only costs $1.99. But it now seems grocery store, Fresh & Easy, known for high-quality foods at budget prices is also offering great wine for low prices. Nope, not for $2 but at least for under $5. And they’re wines not just from California like CS is but rather Italy, Australia, Argentina and Spain; some are even award winners.
I decided to conduct a blind wine tasting pitting Two-Buck Chuck’s Chardonnay (which received 98 points, a double gold, with accolades of Best of California and Best of Class from the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition) and Cabernet Sauvignon against Fresh & Easy’s own award-winning Chard and Cab. All were 2007s.
Here are the stats of the F&E contenders:
- Vista Point Chardonnay, California, $1.99 — Bronze medal winner at the San Francisco International Wine Competition
- Northwood Cabernet Sauvignon, California, $3.99 — Silver medal winner at Los Angeles State Fair
With the help of my friends estarLA, the Delicious Life, Tiny Nancer, Chris and Beth — none of us wine experts by any means but we do think good wine is yummy — we found out just who made the best budget wine.
The contenders’ bottles were wrapped up in brown paper to conceal their identities and estarLA and Beth did the pouring as they weren’t present when the bottles were wrapped.
Here’s a summary of our comments for each bottle.
Chardonnays
Wine #1: Fresh, light, sweet but not sugary, can drink alone, super easy to drink, thin
Wine #2: Drier, better with food, bitter aftertaste, more acidic
Cabernet Sauvignons
Wine #3: Dry, fruity, lots of tannins, leathery aftertaste, touch of spice
Wine #4: Flabby, stinks, sweaty in the nose, bleh!, tastes flat like boring ketchup, BO/ass, peppery and watery
Think you know who won?
Fresh & Easy’s Vista Point Chardonnay (wine #1) earned our pick because although TJ’s Chard was a close second, we liked that you can drink the Vista Point on its own while TJ’s is best with food. So you can enjoy the Vista Point whenever.
It was a completely different story with the Cabernets, though. We had very strong feelings about who should be the winner and the loser in this category. Charles Shaw’s Cabernet (wine #3) roundly kicked the Northwood Cab’s $4 butt. And it was even better when we let the Chuck open up more while the Northwood didn’t improve at all.
So what’s the lesson here? Just that you now have more options in addition to Two-Buck Chuck for good, cheap wine. Yay!
Trader Joe’s store locations and Fresh & Easy store locations.
More pics from the blind wine tasting.
We’re so technical. “Smells like ASS.”
But, what if one (not me, but “one”) enjoys a flabby, watery cab that’s sweaty in the nose and smells like ass?
hi, Caroline
please help me and suggest me a good place for a good cocktail in San Fernando Valley.
thank you
What a great idea, guys! I’ve never been to Fresh & Easy but now I’m intrigued…
maybe a 2nd round is needed with some of the searidge wines from vons, some of those are drinkable for being $2.5/3 wines.
Esther,
We’re pros.
Burns!,
Then the F&E cab is right up your alley. :)
pluto,
I don’t know SFV all that well…er but at all.
Marni,
Me neither but they sent me that wine, sooo….
d,
Good idea. Apparently I should include Franzia in there, too.
LOL at Esther. I wasn’t going to be so crude as to say “ass,” but the second Sarah said “It smells like B.O.!” I couldn’t help but completely agree….
i’m miffed 99cent store wine was not included in this tasting. pshaw!
Great article and sounds like a good time! We actually just reviewed the Searidge Chardonnay and on our blog and found it to be pretty good! I think it’s actually on sale at the local grocery (Vons) for under $3.
Hey Caroline… might be helpful to your readers to know that it was the 2005 vintage of Charles Shaw Chardonnay that won a Double Gold at the California State Fair. No previous vintages since then have earned any significant accolades, and besides, Charles Shaw does such huge production that no two bottles are ever really guaranteed to be very consistent, even within the same vintage.
Two-Buck Chuck is a good bottle to have on hand once your guests are so sloshed that they won’t care what you pour next. With only a few exceptions, though, it’s never very good wine. (Case in point: you said it tasted slightly sweet? Chardonnays are never supposed to be sweet. Fruity, maybe, but any sweetness is considered a fault.)
That said, Trader Joe’s is a great destination for amazing wines in the sub-$5 category. Have you tried the Epicuro wines from Italy? The Vermentino (white) and the Aglianico (red) are both extremely well-made, and are both only $4.99.
Vista Point is now selling 1.5 liter bottles at TJ’s for $2.99. When Two Buck Chuck is no longer an option because of cost, get knocked on your ass for 25% less. Who says the economy is going in the wrong direction?