Masters of Wine Review Costco Red Wines | 1 Hidden red wine
Today we're doing Kirkland Red wine tasting from last video you said there is a significant difference between $60 and then $10 bottle I wanted to see if that's true So these are all $10 bottles with exception of 1? One is $60 wine and then also I wanted to see if any of the Kirkland brand can keep up with that level or even close to it to try to find a good quality Kirkland wine More importantly since you've already told me or told us that they could be from anywhere in the world what's even more important than $10 wines compete with $60 they better not be able to is since they come from all over the world each bottle has got an appellation contrôlée or whatever it is on it are they identifiable as wines from that place for $10, that's a challenge And for people who are watching this video who are not familiar with the Kirkland brand that's Costco's own branded wines those products deliver quality at a very good price now when we're talking wine especially red wine it gets a little dicier here one thing we have unoaked red wines you can produce some delicious unoaked red wines when you start oaking them cheaply you're in the realm of oak chips and oak staves to get to that $10 price point now there are better staves and better chips and lesser staves and chips and there are people who are really good at doing chips and staves and people who are not generally I can even smell the oak chips or the oak staves early on and those tannins can be very hard for the audience as well a good friend and colleague of ours is one of the people who sources Kirkland wines but we're going to not let that bias us at all because we don't know if any of his wines are here or not and we'll just let the wines speak for themselves anything else to add before we taste ? do not speak for yourself I'll tell you when you can talk alright Let's start let's do it Michael Broadbent well known as in the work for Christie's for a very long long period of time was fairly prolific in his writing and he once said that ordinary wines were for drinking and not for discussion though I disagree with him because ordinary wines they are an engine that drives the train of the business of wine many of them I agree are not wines for discussion at all but finding wines that deliver value and a sense of place hopefully certainly a sense of the variety those wines are worth discussing you agree Peter ? Yes I do but if we go into the tiers This sort of old hackneyed The entry level is table wine Vin de table.
One step up from there is Vin de cépage wine made from a specific variety and therefore you need to be able to taste the variety and the third one is Vin de terroir so Vin de terroir is in our context not a specific piece of land but Vin de terroir means in a context like this does it speak of a specific place Chianti whatever it might be I agree with Patrick but at the bottom of it all irrespective of whether they show place or variety cause you just already told us that with the exception of one wine they're all around $10 Correct would you drink those other wines for $10 yes that is the question that is the question do you want to answer it ? some of them I would drink for $10 certainly there's only one wine here that I would dither with all the rest I would absolutely drink at $10 surprisingly good quality across the board I agree absolutely and the other question can we discern a more expensive bottle of wine the proverbial $60 bottle of wine I got it just by looking at the color, swirling looking at the legs that were pigmented coming down I said that is a no brainer there's one wine here that's head and shoulders above the others I hope you and I got the same one there's a reason for that that the single characteristic that most determines price of wine is across the board I mean a certain point when people are drinking label other things come into play and scarcity comes into play but the number one thing cost for the grapes to have more concentrated grapes usually you have a more specific site a site that the land cost more it may cost more to farm and the yields tend to be lower which doesn't say that lower yields always very very very low yields always yield better quality absolutely amen to that just looking at these wines there was one wine that was more deeply colored it had more concentration of flavor more complexity had more length but that said I was surprised as to how many of these wines showed variety and where they were from now that's assuming that was right but both of where was he if you're right yeah shall we get the good wine out of the way let's get the good wine out of the way No.
3 No. 3 okay No. 3 is head and shoulders above the others not just because of those things that Patrick said about concentration all that was of course absolutely true I mean this is a really really good wine was it easy to find though ? easy to find Patrick found it on the color I didn't cause you can do all sorts of things to mess with color but I found it on it you just can't make a wine like that for $10 35 or 40 years of experience and [ __ ] I shouldn't have told you that there was a $60 wine and the reality is that somebody said this is $10 you're right no no no if somebody tells you that wine is $10 forward the guy to me because he's in serious need of consulting and maybe psychiatric care maybe tooth work yeah tooth work and perhaps in need of a bankruptcy attorney soon so let's talk about that wine first and then we'll do the other wines No.
3 we both agree deep purple Garnet opaque color legs with pigment the nose was tight but there was cassis there there was noticeable alcohol and oak it was full bodied with tannins were full but they had ripeness and elegance there was not just quantity of tannin but the quality of tannin it was rich well balanced very good length I thought this was made from Bordeaux varieties I thought this was coming from France from Bordeaux 100% in agreement Let's see where it's from Did you get more clue from the color or from nose? initially I got it just from the color but again when you are going to put your marker down you do the whole thing color nose everything combined A great vintage I love wines from Margaux it was delicious wine It's my favorite region as well, Margaux Let's get down to the essence of this tasting $10 what do we get wine no.1 was very dark deep Ruby not quite opaque no age showing obviously long legs cause there's reasonable alcohol here it's quite extracted On the nose it was kind of dusty I thought I detected U.S. oak entry was tight very tannic but I found it ungenerous was high acids like a short finish not bad wine at all not charming lots of faux oak by faux oak he means fake oak not oak barrels not oak barrel How do you know though there's a character and I don't always get it right but there's a character to the oak which is a sort of there's a greenness there's a harshness there's a sort of character there which sort of hints of having rushed it so the question was what was it in the end I went for new world probably Bordeaux blend it's one of my lowest scores I gave it 81 I got some pimento on this as well some greenness that again spoke to Bordeaux varieties higher yields gives you some of that greenness I was also new world Bordeaux varieties I was thinking Cabernet Sauvignon more than Merlot that could be a blend probably from California let's see what it is 60% Cabernet sauvignon 40% Merlot it's good that we had that right after we spoke about the real deal now Bordeaux superior or Bordeaux sups they are not superior to other Bordeaux it's just the name of the classification these wines have improved dramatically with climate change and they used to be abysmal and this wine is reasonably drinkable but again it was one of my least favorite of the was my least favorite of the line up I would drink it I would drink it yeah No.
2 ? this is the lightest in color light red rim cleared I didn't see any real sign of age on it the nose is somewhat muted I got muted berry with a hint of oak on the palate nice up front Berry fruit and then the oak took over shortening the finish there was a spiciness on the finish that reminded me of Zinfandel I played with it on that basis I moved away from that in the end I agree with the spiciness I ended up thinking it was Pinot but not burgundy I had thought about Pinot as well and that spicy note was what tip me over but it was hard to find Pinot for $10 that's the point I messed with things that could be lighter Tempranillo which usually much darker Garnacha in the end I went with Pinot maybe out of New Zealand or something like that let's see wow that's amazing yeah that's pretty good value $10 and in general for people learning about wine it's much easier to find wines expressive of variety at price points substantially above $10 When you get to the $10 range it gets a bit tougher No.
4 this is also definately red, brick sort of Ruby pale Ruby dark cherry something like that no age showing legs but no extract a little bit of earth I thought I saw on the color so that would be some age but not really tannic entry well done but just hard to do like at this price Thought it was European wine to be honest I thought this was Chianti I love Chianti Reserva more than any other red wine on the planet and so to try and if this was Chianti to try and squeeze Sangiovese into this price point extremely difficult but that's where I am I think we're drinking Chianti or something based on Sangiovese I scored the wine 86 I'am on the same boat as you Peter the light color, the berry fruit but the earthiness as well combined with the bitter cherry the bitter cherry very nice acidity I quickly went to Sangiovese in Italy hopefully that's where we are Riserva! give me a break that is not a reserva yeah, this is very popular in Korea as well I'm glad that you both liked it I'm glad we liked it you know why because if I am all known in Korea it's for my love of Sangiovese and it would be very good that I picked up the Sangiovese This is No.
5 it was medium Ruby red though you could still see through it I got coconut dill and Berry the palate I thought was better than the nose I also got some lemon pledge and some earthiness the coconut dill for me is American oak though lemony notes for a red wine with earthiness is tempranillo so I thought this is Tempranillo from Spain that lemon pledge who's note was that? it's mine Is it your note I'm in Spain I'm either Tempranillo or mostly Tempranillo and I went to Rioja yes all right That amount of oak could be Reserva it's not too easy Patrick and I are having a great day I speak for myself on the side of the yard we both stepped in [ __ ] I was debating No. 4 and 5 for Chianti . Do they share any similarity between Tempranillo and Chianti? earthiness but this Sangiovese is going to have cherry the Tempranillo is gonna have berry the Sangiovese is going to have higher acidity and the tannins are going to be a bit more astringent and also you're not gonna get American oak on Sangiovese from Italy You're going to get it in Spain Tempranillo can do much darker colors then Sangiovese that doesn't mean to say that it is but Tempranillo is capable of seriously dark color whereas Sangiovese for the most part is not but if you have Rioja that has a good amount of Garnacha, Grenache the color can be lighter somewhat paler than the others but not pale no extract lots of legs almost no extract I picked up oak here almost sweet entry but then the attack was bold I struggled with this one in the end I went with Garnacha so I don't know if that's a Ribera or because I thought it was Spain Ribera del Duero or something with lots of Garnacha so that's where I am I think those are all good thoughts but not with great confidence so this one doesn't tell the place very well 70% Grenache 10% Syrah 10% Mourvedre Mourvedre Mourvedre 10% Cinsault retasting it it does taste like Chateaunef or Gigondas this is $20 bottle that's a nice bottle of wine the last wine last one! medium purple Garnet the nose was muted to me on the palate I had firm oak chip tannins right out of the bat fairly nice fruit up front and then I got this oak chip or oak stave when your kid having a popsicle if you had a popsicle had that stick in your mouth for a while it gave you this bitter tannins nothing screamed out at me but based upon the fairly deep color and some Berry fruit I went to Syrah Washington State versus Australia I usually can pick a very very cheap wine cause I drink a lot of cheap wine this one I definitely thought it was like a really cheap wine I thought this was European wine to cut a long story short of all the [ __ ] based on Tempranillo let's see what it is so basically it's not telling you a place either It's $10 Rioja was $8 so Rioja I would go with Rioja Rioja with $8 ? $8 yes $8 yes the Riserva here just the way that they oaked it just got in the way I would not have a you know I would have a sip or two of that at a party and say sorry let me try something else it's hard we tasted seven wines six were Kirkland wines and these wines but they showed for the most part I would be more complimentary than that I think they were very good value and the wines were good enough in terms of representing variety that we got them mostly right You and i basically got them yeah yeah and some were better than others but some of them also showed a sense of place as well so for $10 or in the case of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape $20 that was pretty good and we also showed that a well selected there are $60 bottles of wine that are harsh and difficult to drink that Margaux beautifully balanced a beautiful wine for $60 so we showed that if you've got some more money in your hand and you know what you're buying you can do something that's heads and shoulders leagues above these wine but that all said the Kirkland brand wines that we tasted today delivered quality and delivered value and delivered it ?in spades I thought that the Rioja was very good the Chianti was very good that Châteauneuf-du-Pape is bloody good for $20 so the Châteauneuf-du-Pape got my highest score(87) not by much but it got my highest score so what is this tell you after all of this you get better wine but the important thing is it's actually possible in 2024 to deliver $10 wines from very very well known appellation that some of them are identifiable we're talking about the possibility of getting Vin de terroir at stupid prices I'm very impressed Good news for the consumers live well drink well give us a couple thumbs up until the next time all right cheers cheers sure yeah I want something in my glass what do I have to do ? Just cheers with a glass No.4
