Trader Joe's Henri Laffard Grand Reserve Brut - Discover the $24.99 Grower Champagne Gem!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

wwwDomainDaveCheapWineFindercom flyer. There hasn't been anything new there in a long time. There's wine showing up on there from two years ago but to my surprise they had the honore la farde grand reserve brute champagne for 24.99. Okay, cheap champagne, no cheap grower champagne. Less than five percent of the uh champagnes coming to the United States are grower champagne and one of the reasons why is they make them a smaller amount. What is a grower champagne?

Speaker 1: 0:54

For the longest time the big champagne houses had all the vineyards bottled up, most of like places like Dom Dom Perignon and Chandon and whatever don't own a lot of vineyards. They have traditionally purchased grapes, long-term contracts with all the little growers there. So to have a wine with, you know, from a bunch of different vineyards is common in champagne. It's kind of like the reverse of most places. Bordeaux napa. You want it to be a single vineyard, single section champagne very rarely, and the most expensive wines might be a single vineyard that the uh the champagne house actually owns. But that's the exception, not the rule, and about 100 years ago they let the growers make their own wine. You know there was a big to-do, they got all mad about it and nowadays grower champagnes are these little boutique champagnes. Now I don't know how much of a boutique wine this is. Checking out this wine on the web, there wasn't much going, but most of the websites had a lot of Asian writing. Champagne is especially big in China and other places, so this might be an export wine that Trader Joe's managed to snag some for the United States, which is excellent, and at $24.99 for a legitimate grower champagne, a kind of boutique-y champagne on top of it. Because if you buy a bottle of Adam this year, there's a million bottles of those every year being sold. You're not getting anything exclusive. It's good, I'm not. I'm not complaining about that, but if you go to Trader Joe's and pick up a $25 one, you're getting something that's fairly exclusive. I'm gonna take a sip.

Speaker 1: 3:04

There are different classifications of the Negotiate wines. This is an NM Negotiate, manipulate, which means that they bought the grapes from other, probably other grower producers. They bought it from somebody else and then they did the. They improved the wine, which, again, is common. That's the way things are done there. This isn't any shortcut or way to make it cheaper, though it might be a little cheaper that way, but it's a common practice. You're not getting anything less.

Speaker 1: 3:43

In the title it says Grand Reserve, which isn't an approved champagne term. You know, grand Cru and those type of things are all approved. This is kind of like you know, old Vine Zinfandel. There's no rule that says that Old Vine Zinfandel has to be any age at all. It's what they say it is, but it's generally accepted that it's over 40 years old and it tends to be. The reputable Zinfandel producers make sure that's what they have. And with this Grand Reserve, because it's a non-vintage wine and they're taking different vintages, which they're doing supposedly every wine is supposed to be older than five years old, which, with champagne, is good, because the older it gets, the more the bubbles become incorporated, the creamier it gets. Age and champagne tends to raise the price. Now, since it's not an approved and this is a Trader Joe's wine and I don't know and I don't read Chinese, so I can't figure out what's going on with the website and the Bernard Ramey is the, the grower champagne producer that made this and they have their own wines, but I'm not sure if this has anything to do with those. This might be a specialty wine, so I can't really go by how they make their wines, because it doesn't necessarily mean they made this the same way.

Speaker 1: 5:15

I'm going to take another sip. It's a tasty champagne. It's dry, it's brute, it's very dry. I'm going to pour myself a little bit more because it's one of those things it's got. It's brute, it's very dry. I'm going to pour myself a little bit more because it's one of those things. It's got that acidity that beckons you, beguiles you, to take another sip, which is dangerous with champagne, especially one that's this affordable. It has kind of firm flavors, a little weight on the palate. This is not a flighty champagne at all. It's got.

Speaker 1: 5:56

I actually wrote that the city was zesty, which is not a term I wouldn't necessarily use, but it worked. I mean, it does have that and it's got really good length. It stays with you. The best champagne I ever had disappeared in your mouth at no length. As soon as you tasted it it was gone. It was like a ghost of a champagne which was great. And this one's got length. But it's good too. And that was a lot more expensive.

Speaker 1: 6:22

This is $24.99. And it tastes delicious. Yeah, I mean, um, grower producer. Only five percent of the market in the united states is grower producer. You could chase around your town to all the wine shops looking for an affordable grower producers? They're out there, but here you just stop by trader joe's and grab one off the shelf and and get some orange chicken and you know what else too. So this is, this is a treat for um new year's. This is legitimate, really good champagne, great for toasting if you're having a party. Rather than spend uh for a couple, to spend uh 100 bucks on two dimes or two chandons, you can get four of these and I think this is the way to go. So, adios, keep it cheap. I got one more bubbly coming up before New Year's Eve and I'll be talking to everybody. So this is the Henri Laford Grand Reserve Brut Chardonnay. Adios, keep it cheap. I'll be talking to everybody in a couple of days. Bye-bye.