CheapWineFinder Podcast
Talking about remarkable wines that pair nicely with your wallet! Because we like to keep it cheap but excellent.
CheapWineFinder Podcast
A Value Hunter’s Guide to Trader Joe’s Reserve Pinot Noir 2023
A ten-dollar Pinot shouldn’t be this intriguing—and that’s exactly why we opened it. We dive into Trader Joe’s Reserve Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir 2023 and unpack how a sideways coastline, cold Pacific winds, and transverse valleys conspire to make Santa Barbara a cool-climate haven for Pinot Noir. From thin skins to see-through color, we decode the visual and structural clues that tell you whether a Pinot is honest, balanced, and worth your glass.
We share what “classic California Pinot” means in practical terms: ripe cherry and strawberry up front, rough-edged spice in the mid-palate, and that elusive “what is that?” note—tar, crushed leaves, herbs—that keeps you curious. You’ll hear how producer know-how (hat tip to Bozzano & Company) and smart sourcing can deliver complexity at value pricing, and why alcohol labeled at 14.5% can still drink seamlessly when acidity and texture line up. Along the way, we challenge the myth that price predicts pleasure, explain how retail costs get set, and make the case for judging wine by enjoyment, not hype.
If you’re Pinot-curious or Santa Barbara-bound, we’ve got practical takeaways: ideal serving temp, easy pairings like roast chicken, salmon, and mushroom-forward dishes, and a simple framework for spotting authentic Pinot in the glass. The bottom line: this TJ’s Reserve offers real Santa Barbara character without the $40 price tag. If that sounds like your kind of weeknight win, hit play, taste along, and tell us where you’re finding the best value bottles.
Enjoyed the pour? Follow the show, share with a friend who loves Pinot, and leave a quick review so more value-seekers can find us.
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Hey, hello. Domain Dave here at uh cheapwinefinder.com. We've been doing wine reviews since I think 2008. Value priced wine reviews. We started it because most people weren't doing value price wine reviews, and most people drink value-price wine, so it's like eh, maybe we got something to talk about. And today we've got a Trader Joe's wine, it's a Trader Joe's Reserve Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir 2023. I know they had a 2021 vintage of this wine. Uh Bozano and Company made it then. They do now, they're a bulk and custom company. They've made some of the some really good Trader Joe's wines over the years. Um, I've got a link to their website on the cheap wine finder website review. Not that you can't type it into Google yourself, but you can see some of the labels they have, and that there's some favorites there. Santa Barbara is 100 miles north of Los Angeles, and it would be too warm. You know, it at best it would be like one of the warmer ones, Zimpandels, Cabinet Sauvignon. But because part of it kind of juts out into the Pacific Ocean, which is a very cool ocean, it's not a peninsula and everything, it's just enough that you've got cold winds and cold water south, west, and north of you. And it kind of blows in, and there's mountains, and the mountains retain that, they don't let the winds blow through. So you've kind of got a cool growing area. Actually, the town of Santa Barbara is called the American Riviera because it's about 75 year-round and you know, sunny skies, and that's what you're getting here. And it's a Pinot Noir growing region. Um this one is 14.5 in the alcohol, which is a bit stiff for a Pinot Noir, but it drinks pretty good. It's got a nice see-through color. Uh, the Pinot Noir grape itself is thin skins, so the color comes from the skins, so the skins are so thin you're not getting a lot of color from them. So you can always see-through. If you see a Pinot Noir that's too dark, something's happened there. I can't tell you exactly what happened, but they added something else to it. But a regular Pinot Noir should be fairly see-through. I'm gonna take a sip. This is a classic California Pinot Noir. A classic California Pinot Noir is gonna have some sweet flavors, it's gonna have some rough-edg spices, and it's gonna have some what the heck is that flavors. If you first have one, you go, I don't know about that. And it's just one of those things that the more you drink it, the more you kind of want it. Because it doesn't give itself up easily. But once you get the beauty of the wine, you know, you are so beautiful to me. This is a uh this is a wine that is kind of lovely, and at$9, Santa Barbara wines are usually not too cheap. Um yeah, usually$20 to$40 is the regular stuff, and the fancy vineyard single vineyard stuff will go up higher than$40 and up. So$10 is kind of, you know, you're only getting that like again at uh at the stores that have sell their own brand. There, I just had another sip. It's good wine, it's it's complex. There's a lot of things going on here. It's not just smooth, though there is a smooth part of it. It's not just spicy, so it is spicy. It's not too just this rougher edge stuff going on, this tar, this crushed autumn leaves, herbs, but they're in there too. Which is, like I said, it's what you want in a Pinot Noir. The ones that are too smooth or too rough are bad. I mean, to me, are not the good wines. For 10 bucks, this is a really good wine. This is just a reserve. You know, I've done a couple of um Trader Joe's uh Grand Reserve wines and and and up lately, and they've all been good wines, they usually are. But I think I like this 10 bucks uh reserve wine, the best out of all of them. Not the other ones were bad by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes the$10 one beats the the$15 and the$13 and the$17 wine. I mean the what a wine costs, what the selling price is, and what your enjoyment factor is are not actually related. It's it's weird that way because there's a lot of factors in why a wine costs what it is. And I'm gonna take another sip. And good is good, so just don't get don't get too you know bent out of shape because something doesn't uh doesn't cost enough. It doesn't matter. I mean I just came back from a couple weeks ago going to Napa Valley where I drank a lot of um heights and all these really fine wines, and I can't say that the under$20 wines I drink for Trader Joe's were any worse. I mean that wasn't the same, but those wines are good, and so are the wines I drink for the website. So there you go. Uh this is Domain Dave. This was the Trader Joe's Reserve Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir 2023. If you like Pinot Noir, if you want to know what Santa Barbara County is all about, it's um it's about as far south as you can go into the warm weather and still grow Pinot Noir in the United States. So it's a good wine, keep it cheap, adios. I'll be talking to everyone in a couple of days. Um adios. Bye bye.