Wine at Trader Joe's

[tirgoddess]

This is going to annoy many of you becuase the peramiters of my request are so narrow, so your input is truly appreciated. I am interested to hear about wines that eGulleteers enjoy from Trader Joe's. My friend recently took over the wine purchaseing at my local Trader Joe's. She is planning tastings to familiarize us and herself with the various wines so that she can speak knowledgeably about them. I am a novice wine buyer with a limited buget. To narrow the field further, I am a Northern Californian, so availability might be different in my region (I don't expect you to know if your suggestion is carried in No. Calif.) I am especially interested in quality wines from France as I will be attending a tasting next week that is featuring French wines. I would appreicate any suggestions that you folks can offer, thanks.

[tanabutler]

Tell her to find Austrian Grunver Veltliners. They're the bomb.

[Carolyn Tillie]

It is a total crapshoot. I lived in SoCal (where Trader Joe's began) up until a year-and-a-half ago and the wine available from Trader Joe's that were not even five miles apart varied greatly.

Now I am here in NoCal (Napa). When I first moved here, I was devastated by the wine selection at the Fairfield TJs. Now I live in Napa and there is a fabulous selection that includes French, German, and a smattering of other countries. And these two stores were less than 10 miles apart!

Can you ask your friend what distributor they deal with? That is the bottom line - we can recommend until we are blue in the face, but if the wines we recommend are not offered by Said Distributor, it won't do you a damn bit of good. Darn shame about the industry - each distributor carries "their book" of wines and even if a store or restaurant WANTS something else, many times it is too difficult because of distribution laws and contracts.

I guess your best bet is simply to taste what you can, take good notes, and buy what YOU like. Sure, "such-and-such" a wine might get great ratings, but if it does not please your palate, who cares?

Report back now, you hear? We'd love to hear what sort of things you end up getting!