Delicious Wine Alert - Willia Willamette Chardonnay- Trader Joe's

A $12.99 Chardonnay from Willamette Valley that actually overdelivers? We pop the cork on Willa Creek 2023 and trace the bigger story behind Oregon’s quiet Chardonnay comeback. For years the region leaned on California clones that struggled to ripen in cooler sites, yielding lean, austere wines. The switch to Dijon clones—and a clearer read on site and style—has unlocked balance, lift, and flavor, and this stainless-steel, unoaked bottling shows how far things have come.

We break down the tasting profile in plain terms: a clean mix of orchard fruit and citrus framed by crisp acidity, no oak, and a texture that starts soft and expands across the palate. If you avoid buttery Chardonnay, this is your lane. We also decode the label: “produced and bottled by,” the fresh Willa Creek trademark, and Precept Wine’s role crafting store brands for Trader Joe’s and beyond. The paperwork might be new, but the winemaking knows what it’s doing, and the result punches above its price.

Planning the holiday table? This is a smart pour for turkey and rich sides. The acidity cuts through creamy dishes, the fruit stays friendly, and the finish stays clean. Beyond Thanksgiving, it’s a weeknight match for roast chicken, lemony pastas, and sushi. More importantly, it signals where Oregon Chardonnay is heading: focused, bright, and increasingly reliable at value prices. Give it a try, see how it blooms in the glass, and tell us what you taste.

If you enjoy the show, follow, rate, and share it with a friend who loves finding great bottles under $15. Your rec keeps the reviews coming—what value Chardonnay should we open next?

Check us out at www.cheapwinefinder.com

or email us at podcast@cheapwinefinder.com

Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Wine Overview
• 0:28 Oregon Chardonnay Backstory
• 1:46 Tasting Profile And Texture
• 3:44 Who Makes Willa Creek
• 5:25 Thanksgiving Pairing And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

It's Domain Dave, cheapwinefinder.com again with another wine review, like we always do. Uh value price wines uh that are um easy to find. This one's from Trader Joe's. It's a new one, brand new one. So Willia Creek, W I L L I A Creek, Willamette Valley Chardonnay 2023. It's$12.99. For Willamette Valley, that's a good price. Uh there's a story about Willamette Valley. I'll tell that right away while I'm thinking of it. Normally, if an area is very good at growing Pinot Noir, those conditions are also optimal for Chardonnay. It's that way in Burgundy, it's that way in Santa Barbara, California, it's that way in Monterey, it's that way in um Sonoma Coast, it's not it's that way in Carneros, it's that way in uh every single area, Russian River. There's they go hand in hand, but in Oregon, the white wine was always Pinot Gris. Pinot Gris is Pinot Grigio, but made in the French style, not the Italian style. And in uh Chardonnay just didn't work up there. And it turns out that they had been planting the California clone, and that's probably the Wente clone, but there could be other ones involved, and they just didn't work for that climate, they weren't getting ripe enough, they were too acidic, they weren't fun to drink, and they finally figured out that you need the Dijon clone, which is from Burgundy, and that for some reason Willamette Valley and Burgundy have more in common than they thought, even though I think they thought they had something in common, because both are world famous for making uh Pinot Noir and Chardonnay now, and now so this is something relatively new. You know, they're kind of they're still making Pinot Griege, not Grigio Gris, uh, but Chardonnay is coming online and they're starting to get the hang of Chardonnay too. I mean, it takes a while to figure out what the grapes in the vineyard are telling the winemaker. There is a learning period, but it it shouldn't be that hard for them to start getting on with the thing. So there you go. This is a good Chardonnay. It is a um unoaked Chardonnay. It's uh d uh it's fermented and aged in stainless steel. So they're not introducing any oak flavors into it. Uh which, you know, people who do not like buttery Chardonnay are gonna like this. And it's a nice mix of flavors. It there are good fruit flavors and nice citrus flavors. So you're getting that kind of fruity type of thing, and then you're getting that tart thing going on, and it kind of is a nice touch. Oops, I almost knocked my glass over. Let me take a sip. Yeah. The flavors kind of bloom in your mouth. It starts off slow and they build. It's kind of a nice thing. Certain some wines don't do that. Some wines you know either taste good or bad from the get-go. And other wines kind of evolve, and this one kind of grows. This one uh flavors start off soft and then become bigger as as it hits all the parts of your palate, which is one of those signs of a really good wine. You know, you kind of want that. So that's uh that's something good about a$12.99. Now, uh Willa Creek. Willa Creek is from Precept. Precept wines. Precept wines owns Grovet Champagne or Sparkling Wine and a bunch of other brands. And they make a lot of wines for Trader Joe's and Aldi's and all those, so they they they do a nice job of these uh of these uh store brands uh making brands for somebody. And this Willia Creek, this is a 2023 vintage, and the back bottle said produced in bottled by on the label. Produced in bottled by means that they didn't necessarily grow the grapes, but they crushed the grapes, they fermented the grapes, they aged the wine, they bottled the wine. But Willia Creek is a trademark of precept, and it wasn't trademarked until like December 10th, or not December, October 10th. So, how does a 2023 vintage wine come from a somebody who wasn't only in business for the last two weeks? So that's kind of uh I don't know what that means. Wine labeling is so weird nowadays. You just don't know what's I mean, it's still precept. Precept did something with it. They have a lot of good wines, they know what they're doing. They actually have a uh they have an actual um they have their own vineyard in Oregon, though I don't know if it's well, this one doesn't say where in Oregon it's from. So, I mean it could be from their own vineyards there. I don't know. But the Willia Creek, who knows what they are? I'm gonna tell you they're sipping. We'll lock this one up. In the um written review, we always write a review on cheapwinefinder.com. We have been doing that for I think like 18 years now. 17, 18. And um, I mentioned on that that this is a wine you might want to keep your eye out for the Thanksgiving meal. It's really kind of light, so it's not gonna if you actually have turkey. Turkey is all doesn't have a ton of flavor. So if you're having turkey, uh a lighter wine, but has good crisp acidity and good flavor, and would kind of they say it will cut through, you know. Sometimes you get some kind of gooey, really, well, delicious eye dishes that go along with the turkey and the dressing and all that. And this will do a good job there because it tastes great and it's$12.99 and it's from Willamette Valley, so it'll impress your friends and neighbors. So Adios, keep it cheap. This is the William Creek Willamette Valley Chardonnay 2023, Trader Joe's$12.99. And this is Domain Dave Like Us, we like your podcasts. We got more wines coming up, and I will talk to everybody in the next couple of days. So keep it cheap, adios, and bye-bye.