Summary Sommelier Tries Every Costco Wine | World of Wine | Bon Appétit (Youtube) youtu.be
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Speaker 0 Over the holiday break from a well known producer, I bought a bottle for $39. This is at 13.99, and this actually tastes better. You need more? Hey, I'm sommelier Andre Houston Mac, and today I'm gonna be tasting Kirkland Signature Wines only sold by Costco. Costco is the largest wine retailer in the US and Kirkland Signature have really, really, really, really, really low prices.
Speaker 0 But what do you get for those prices? We're gonna find out today. Kirkland Signature is a brand that's owned by Costco. Costco doesn't actually make the wines. Some of the top regions all over the world are represented here, and they're made for Kirkland Signature.
Speaker 0 At our closest store, we found a dozen or so of these wines, and we're gonna give them a taste today. Listen, guys. I'm a professional. I'm a professional here. No bias.
Speaker 0 All of that goes out. I'm gonna just be evaluating the wines for what they are and how they move me today, especially this 1 right here. Our first wine is Kirkland Signature Cabernet Sauvignon from California. This is 8.99. So this is cellared and bottled by DC Flint.
Speaker 0 Costco has incredible buying power. They can reach out to producers to see if they wanted to make something for their Kirkland Signature brands. There's no funny business here. This is kinda straight up. Happens all the time in the industry, and so they're not trying to hide that.
Speaker 0 So on the back here, it'll show you who it's produced by and who it's made by. Can you actually get the wine that's inside this bottle somewhere else? This could be just bottle, a regular bottle with 750 milliliters. This is 1 point 5 liters, so this is a double bottle. In the industry we call this a magnum.
Speaker 0 Think about that, 899 and this is for a double bottle. So if you do the quick math of 7.50 is somewhere around $4 or $4.50. So extremely inexpensive. We're gonna open this bad boy up. This is like raspberry, blueberry, a little bit of pencil shavings, and I smell a little bit of, v 05 hot oil hair relaxer.
Speaker 0 I always get a little faint hint of salon hair. It has some tannins, so it's sucking the moisture out of the sides my cheek, but it's not overpowering, overbearing. Surprising enough, what I would say about this particular wine is that it actually tastes like wine. I feel like when you get into this category and this price point of wine, say, we basically call this $4, sub $5 wine, it tends to be loaded with additives. And, you know, the color looks real.
Speaker 0 Right? It's not this deep, you know, mega purple 13 color to it. It doesn't taste filled with chemicals. Like, it actually tastes like wine, which, I'd have to say is is surprising to me. This is, like, kind of softer Cabernet.
Speaker 0 It doesn't have a lot of tannin or structure to it in that way. When we talk about structure, when you think about Cabernet, you think Cabernet's is this big, round, burly thing, especially from California. This is kinda not that. Who would I recommend this wine? Who drinks this wine?
Speaker 0 Well, I mean, I think anybody who enjoys wine. Is it a wine of consequence? Absolutely not. Not at that price point and not in the quality. But if everyday sipper or drinker, I think this is a a great middle of the road kinda wine as an intro into wine.
Speaker 0 At least it's wine. So I think we're off to a good start. So next up is Kirkland Signature Bordeaux Superieure 2021, and this comes in at $6.89. So I'm told that this is actually a seasonal wine that they have at Costco. So there's wines that are available all throughout the year, and then there's some wines that they only make seasonal.
Speaker 0 I was told that this was the last bottle of wine that we could secure, and it was in a sock box somewhere in the store. Somebody was hiding it for later. You know who you are. You know who you are. So Bordeaux is a region located in France.
Speaker 0 Generally, the grapes here, you can use up to 5 different grapes, and it's probably 1 of the greatest winemaking regions in the world. In the United States, wines are named after the grape, so then the grape varietal is listed prominently on the bottle. So Europe, in the old world, it's named after the region. So here you have Bordeaux, and you would have to know a little something about wine to know what grapes are used in Bordeaux. The second part you see, superior, and that's the designation.
Speaker 0 And there are bylaws and things that they have to go by in order to put Bordeaux superior on the label. Wow. It smells like Bordeaux. It smells like real Bordeaux. Graphite, pencil shavings.
Speaker 0 Wow. Cassis, raspberry, boysenberry, fruity, you know, not like jammy, but there is this really great presence of fruit followed by a little bit of, like, dried mushrooms. Man, this is, you know, this is my Larry David wine. This is pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. For me, it kind of fell a little bit short on the finish.
Speaker 0 $6.89, I mean, I don't know what else to say here. Like, you buy this wine. Where I would expect a bottle of wine like this to be priced outside of the Kirkland Signature brand is somewhere under $30. How do they produce a wine that costs $6.89? Actually, the Costco model is all about volume.
Speaker 0 It's like the grocery store. Grocery store works on very slim margins, you know, under 10%. Even if they're only making pennies on this particular bottle, the goal is for them to sell millions of bottles. The old adage is that you take money to the bank, not percentages. And when you're that big, that generates and translates to a lot of money.
Speaker 0 So next up is Kirkland Signature Champagne Brut for $19.99 Almost seems too good to be true. So in order for it to be called champagne, it actually has to come from the champagne region of France, and there's a particular method that they use there and certain grapes that they use. There's several reasons on why champagne is expensive. It's the method in which it's made and the time. And generally speaking, the more times that you have a human touch the wine in production, touch the bottle after production, the more expensive it's gonna be.
Speaker 0 But what happens and what's special in champagne is that there's a secondary fermentation that happens in the bottle, which creates the carbonation. Time, labor, intensive, especially in a place that, you know, I always try to tell people it snows in champagne. When they get it right, it's 1 of the most beautiful things in the world. So we're gonna go ahead and open this bad boy up. You wanna twist, keeping your hand on both, so you're gonna twist back and forth, and you wanna go really slow and barely hear anything.
Speaker 0 Not that big pop that you see in the movies. Toasty, brioche, doughy, chalky, mineral, little bit of marzipan, apple, little bit of stone fruit. I'm a little lost on this particular wine in the sense that it's just it just doesn't taste like champagne to me. Like, you you hit on some of those notes, but it's very small bubbles, but it's not an ever vessel. It almost tastes somewhat flat.
Speaker 0 It's not given much. What's missing from this is, like, what makes champagne champagne, it's the bubbles. And even when we pour, you can see the mousse, and right So you can see that there's bubbles in it, but it faded pretty quickly. It's really fading fast on the palate. I would put this $20 with another $30 and get something a little bit more expressive and terroir driven, so to speak.
Speaker 0 It's not gonna change as much as I want it to, it's not. We can move on. So up next is the Kirkland Signature Isolo Prosecco Superior, and this comes in at 799. Prosecco is funny because it's been a long cultural thing in Italian culture, but, you know, once it makes its way across the pond here to America, I believe this is probably 1 of the number 1 name called recognizable sparkling wines in the world. In every single country, they have a governing body or agency that overlooks wine, food.
Speaker 0 Here, what you have is called DOCG. It's an acronym for the governing body that hands down the laws on how you can call this a solo Prosecco. You know, it comes from a certain region. Here in America, we have the AVA. In France, they have AOC.
Speaker 0 We're gonna get into this purple thing here. Some Prosecco. Look at that. Just jumping out the glass to meet me. Smile, very fragrant.
Speaker 0 White flowers, moosecat gummies from Pearl River, citrus. It smells slightly confectionery, like cotton candy. So somewhat sweet on the palate, not overly sweet or anything like that. Almost reminds me of a fruit cocktail when I was a child, you know, how you drink the juice at the end. I would like it to be a little bit drier.
Speaker 0 It's Prosecco, like I think like what's there not to love? There's bubbles, bubbles, there's alcohol. If you were gonna mix this with something, then by all means go ahead. 7.99, drink it all day long if this is your jam, but to me it's just a little sweet. And I think that's what attracts most people to it.
Speaker 0 But for my taste, I would go to a different store to find Prosecco. Alright. Next wine wine is Kirkland Signature Chablis Premier Cru 2021. This is the most expensive still wine that we're gonna taste today coming in at 18.99. And do I bock at that price?
Speaker 0 I do not bock at that price. Chablis is a serious wine, and if they got anything close to the seriousness of Chablis in this particular bottle, 18 99 is a still. Run away with it, it's a still. So let's understand that Chablis is the name of a place. It is in Burgundy.
Speaker 0 It's in the northern part of Burgundy, and they're known for making Chardonnay. So this is 100% Chardonnay. What makes this region of Chablis special is that it's all grown on limestone and clay soils on this big old fossil rock. And in parts, it's really kinda great minerality in the wine, and so that's really what you're looking for when you're thinking about chablis. Also, what you see here is premier cru, and premier cru is a designation that's provided by the AOC, which is the governing body.
Speaker 0 And so they go through and rank the different vineyards, label just main regular chablis. That's like a your entry level. Then the next step up would be premier cru, and then the next step would be grand cru, and that was the highest, and that's generally a single vineyard wine. So the idea that they decided not to just do a regular chivalry, that they thought that they would do a step up in quality and do a primo crew, that's reflected in the price as well. I love that color.
Speaker 0 It has like this golden tinge to it. It smells like a candy apple to me. So it's apple, pear, there's, minerality, or kind of sea salt air that I get from it, this freshness to it. So pretty decent acidity, not like overblown, but like there is, this freshness and brightness as a zip to it, like a caramel apple. Reminds me kind of like Halloween.
Speaker 0 A flunty kind of stone, kind of wet stone thing going on. They say gunsmoke is a is a thing that you get. And this is all attributed to the terroir. So the soil in the air in this particular region all contribute to those tastes and those things that we're talking about. That lime stone and clay make up with fossils in it.
Speaker 0 The roots of the vine go down, and those things are all being pulled from the soils. When the French talk about terroir, they're talking about it has a sense of place. That's why all the wines are named after the place and not the grape. This is pretty spot on. It's tasty.
Speaker 0 It's good. It's quality chablis. And to boot, it's $18.99. And I'm sure this is the way that people in France feel. Right?
Speaker 0 Because I'm sure this is how this is they can buy the wines at this price. But here in America, like, that's a, a reason to shout for joy. Alright. Next up, Kirkland Signature Sonoma County Chardonnay coming in at $7.99. So we had Chablis earlier, so both of those wines are Chardonnay, that's what they have in common, but we'll shortly find out that they probably are gonna taste different.
Speaker 0 So, Sonoma County, it is in Northern California. You have Napa that sits on 1 side, you have Sonoma who sits on the other side, the mountains. And to be honest with you, Sonoma County is synonymous with Chardonnay. When you think about typical American Chardonnay, somewhat buttery, oaky vanilla, this kind of robust round thing that's fun to drink. Stove enclosure here.
Speaker 0 Doesn't smell very buttery or over the top, but it does have the presence of oak. Smells very pleasant. How's the oak expressing itself? So in this wine, do I smell the toastiness of oak? Yes.
Speaker 0 But also what I smell is vanilla, and that comes from the oak. I smell a little bit of cinnamon and vanilla. That also comes from oak. It is somewhat sweet, we'll call it ripe. So it is round, it is rich.
Speaker 0 It tastes like vanilla extract. It's been my experience when, you know, it's like, it's that's been chemically from Chardonnay? Absolutely. And like I tell my kids, don't yuck anybody else's yum. If this is what you like, this is great.
Speaker 0 Like, we all start somewhere, and if this is what you landed on, this is great. I applaud those people because at least you know what you like. The whole idea of this of of me doing what I do is not tell you what you like or dislike. To me, it's to help you find what you like. I'm a tour guide.
Speaker 0 I know wine a little bit better than most, and I'm here to kind of walk you through so you can figure out what you like or don't like. I'm not on this. If you like this, this ding ding ding ding ding ding, you found it. And if not, you wanna do something a little different, then you can continue to to to taste and sample. It's gonna be a great cut to you with the 3 liter box.
Speaker 0 I love it. I mean So our next wine is Kirkland Signature Chardonnay. This comes in at 13:49, and this is a 3 liter box. So inside of this box is the equivalent of 4 bottles. This puts us around $3 and some change per bottle.
Speaker 0 So the least expensive wine per 7.50 that we're gonna taste today. The cheapest wine in Costco, should I be scared? Should I be afraid? I don't know. It is California Chardonnay, and so this is interesting because you see it says California here.
Speaker 0 So that's the designate. So the previous Chardonnay that we tasted could come from only Sonoma County. This wine can come from anywhere in California. The more specific you can be about it, the more expensive it'll be, the more prized it will be. So it's all about location, location, location.
Speaker 0 This packaging to me is this is about your daily drinker. They wanna, you know, get effed up. Eureka. This smells like Chardonnay, materized Chardonnay, so it, it smells, reduced somewhat. There's a hint of butterscotch, nutty like sherry.
Speaker 0 No trace of fruit or anything like that. It tastes like a caramel apple, so I get a lot of that, and a lot of that is like the oxidation of of Chardonnay. So it tastes somewhat nutty. It has good texture, but it's just, it's not good. It's not it's not good.
Speaker 0 When a wine is exposed to oxygen for a very long time, oxygen is the enemy, and it, like, starts to tear down and break down the wine. When a wine tastes oxidized, it tastes like nutty. And for me, that's a flaw because Chardonnay is not supposed to be oxidized. It's not something, you know, it's not it's not supposed to be oxidized. And so that's a fault.
Speaker 0 I would pass on this and that. I'd pass on it. Alright. So next up is Kirkland Signature Pinot Grigio, and this comes in at $4.99. This comes from Italy, from Trulli, so the northern part of Italy.
Speaker 0 So this is cool climate Pinot Grigio. Cooler climate just means that it slows down the growing process and it gives the grapes the chance to ripen phenolically. A cool climate style wine means it's gonna be zippy. It has acid. It has this, this kinda zip and pop to it.
Speaker 0 It does have a screw cap. In the industry, we call it stove enclosure. Oddly enough, the stove enclosure and bottle combination cost more than the cork and regular bottle closure. The cork is porous and over time will let air in to help slowly break down the wine. Stove and closure doesn't allow that to happen, and so maybe this closure isn't right for some of those most prized bottles of wine.
Speaker 0 But things that you're gonna drink tonight, yesterday, right at this moment, to me, the Stelvin Closers crew cap is all about twisting the cap off and getting the party started. Vibrant fruits, a little bit of pear, just a little bit of lemon lime. Tastes like Pinot Grigio, good acid. I'm starting to salivate right now, so high acid. This is solid.
Speaker 0 Acid's a good thing. Acid's an amplifier. The reason why you put lemon on seafood is to kinda amplify the flavors of the dish. If you start to salivate, that means that the wine is high in acid. The sides of your tongue will tingle.
Speaker 0 That's where you accentuate acidity. Acid comes from different types of grapes. So this is Pinot Grigio is an high acid grape. It's refreshing in a lot of ways, and I think that's what makes Pinot Grigio, Pinot Grigio. This does have some quality of note.
Speaker 0 This seems like it's been intentional. It doesn't taste watered down. 499 is kinda cool to have something in your back pocket, just easy drinking white wine. I don't think anybody opens a glass of Pinot Grigio and wants to ponder the, you know, civilization. Right?
Speaker 0 You know what I mean? It's like good time talking, hanging out, snacking. You know, this is a fun wine. So next we have Kirkland's signature Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina, and this comes in at $6.99. What makes Malbec special especially from the Mendoza region is its relationship to altitude.
Speaker 0 It is in the mountains, it's very high. You don't want the grapes to ripen too quickly. Being at a higher altitude, it extends the growing season because it's a lot cooler, and you don't have a lot of sun. I think you get cleaner fruit, and you get a better expression of said fruit. Right?
Speaker 0 So there's a big old sticker here on the front, and it says 90 points. And so this was rated by a wine reviewer. You know, it's so funny because I always think about life is just a continuation of high school. Right? Just because he put 90 on here, he might like something totally different than me.
Speaker 0 And I don't know how many points I'm gonna give this sucker here. Mhmm. Very distinctive. It has, like, this freshness of, like, eucalyptus or somewhat mint through spearmint. Cherry, dark cherry, black cherry, lots of fruit element.
Speaker 0 There's a little black pepper spice, black cherry, dark cherry. That tastes like Malbec. Right? Like, it is fruit forward, it's tannic, it's got this structure. It's not like over the top.
Speaker 0 What do you expect when you think about Malbec? Like to me, I think there's that fruit element, like, that you get in Cabernet, but it's this herbaceousness that you get that you don't really get in Cabernet, and it's a little bit of spice to it. Is this the best Malbec I've ever tasted? Absolutely not. But at 699, like, I don't think you'd go wrong here.
Speaker 0 This is like a big warm hug. Alright. So next up is Kirkland Signature Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand. This comes in at 7:49, but what we do see here is the word tea point, and that's the name of the producer. Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand has its own distinctive smell that you put your nose in the glass and you smell it, you know that it's Sauvignon Blanc.
Speaker 0 Another thing, kind of weird thing that's synonymous when you think about like Sauvignon Blanc, you hear this term called called cat pee. And people are like, what? Why would I wanna drink anything that has cat pee? But it's a it's a certain smell that when you smell it, you recognize it. But, it's pleasant.
Speaker 0 It's a pleasant smell. Oh, cool. Alright. Kirkland Signature. There it is.
Speaker 0 There it is. It, you know, it has this really like heavy kind of grassy note to it that you can smell. Underneath that there's kind of white flowers, this kind of perfume. Then you're getting lots of citrus, so lemon, lime. It's a vegetable wine.
Speaker 0 It's like drinking a glass of green peppers. So you get like this bell pepper kinda note to it. On the nose, it's kinda ripe and round, and then what you really get is like green pepper. Where I've seen a lot of it drank compared is with salads with some type of protein on it. I would like the wine a little bit drier.
Speaker 0 There's this ripeness. Those taste like there's some R. S. And residual sugar in the wine. There's sugar left over after fermentation.
Speaker 0 So when we think about the whole process of how wine is being made, the sugars from the grapes so I always like to say, like, you know, yeast eats the sugar and poops out alcohol. Any point along that process, you can stop the fermentation, and then you'll have residual sugar left over. But generally, what happens is people ferment it till it's dries. So at 7:49, this is great. I've seen stuff like this floating around for like $16, so I think there's some value there.
Speaker 0 It's funny the vegetable aspect of it, like that kind of thing seems somewhat jarring if you're not used to it, but I think it's what calls people right, it's what's pulling them in. It's very unique and distinctive and a fun wine to drink. So next up we have Kirkland Signature Gigondas and this comes in at $13.99 and we have brought you another, I'm told this is another seasonal drop. I think some of you might be asking yourself, why have I never heard of this word before, this place? It's called gigandas.
Speaker 0 It is in the Rhone Valley. And probably what you've heard of more frequently is maybe something like Cote D'Oron. Gigandas comes from a specific place located in the Rhone Valley. They have a certain set of grapes that they can use here that aren't that many. The more specific you can get about a particular area or wine, the more nuance it's gonna be, and the more it's gonna speak of this place.
Speaker 0 What you have to realize is that Costco is a very serious buyer. Being the largest US retailer, part of your job is to educate. This is the coat of arms for the region of Jigandazo, and it's printed on the bottle, and it's kinda marketing for the region. Are you paying for that? In some instance, yes.
Speaker 0 But I tell you what you're not paying for in a lot of old world wines and especially wine in Rhone, not paying for inherent land costs. That land has been in those people's families for over 400 years. Like, they've already paid off the land. Conversely, if you look at something like the Americas or something like Napa, worth $1,000,000 per acre to purchase. So it gets really expensive, and those things are passed down to the consumer, and it seems like better value wines that come from Europe.
Speaker 0 Alright. So we're gonna crack open to this. I think the first thing I get is, like, iron. I would say this kind of weird. It smells like blood.
Speaker 0 Cherry, so a little bit of cedar, sandalwood. There's a little minerality to it. It's like pavement, like on a hot summer day. That is delicious. That is really great.
Speaker 0 It's full bodied. It's got this power. It's very rustic. It's not refined or polished, but that's what you want. This is this is this is a this is g and a.
Speaker 0 This is a shining example. Like, this wine is great. I wasn't expecting this. I mean, I would have to say out of all the wines today, I'm I'm most surprised by this wine. This is at 1399.
Speaker 0 Over the holiday break from a well known imported by Kermit Lynch, I bought a bottle for $39 and this actually tastes better. There's no shame in my game. Like I I I would pull out the swine and pour it for friends. You know, as I reflect and kinda look back at all the wines we tasted today, there were definitely varying degrees of quality and value, but I was surprised. My relationship with wine is not about monogamy.
Speaker 0 Not not at all. It's like I wanna taste everything even if I don't like it, and I think your taste in wine will evolve as you kinda start down this journey. You know, it's so funny, we had some friends over for the holidays, and all I had cold was this box wine that somebody had sent me. So I put it in this $200 decanter and brought it to the table while I'm in the kitchen. And that's the 1 that was the 1 that they could only talk about the whole time.
Speaker 0 So we had, like, wines from 1988. We had all these different ones, but they're like, that white wine was so great. It was pretty tasty, but I didn't have the heart yet to tell them.