CheapWineFinder Podcast
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CheapWineFinder Podcast
Uncorking Aldi's $18 Napa Valley Brut: Worth the Splurge?
The hunt for affordable luxury often leads to unexpected places. Such is the case with Aldi's Specially Selected Napa Valley Brut, which at $17.99 might raise eyebrows among budget-conscious shoppers—until they taste it.
This sparkling wine comes from respected producer Rack and Riddle, the behind-the-scenes maestros responsible for many quality bubblies that don't carry luxury price tags. What makes this offering special is its pedigree: genuine Napa Valley grapes cultivated specifically for sparkling wine production, harvested earlier than their still-wine counterparts, and crafted using the traditional champagne method. While Aldi doesn't disclose the exact grape composition, it likely follows the classic Brut formula of predominantly Chardonnay with Pinot Noir adding complexity and character.
The tasting experience punches well above its price class. With bright acidity and refined flavor that could easily be mistaken for entry-level champagne in a blind tasting, this wine delivers tremendous value. While seasoned holiday shoppers might note that California outposts of famous champagne houses sometimes offer similar prices during promotional periods, finding this quality at $18 year-round is remarkable. For anyone looking to elevate their celebration without emptying their wallet, this Napa Valley Brut proves that sometimes, the best values hide in plain sight. Try it alongside appetizers at your next gathering or as an affordable luxury for your weekend wind-down—your palate will thank you while your budget breathes easy.
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Hey, domain Dave, cheapwinefindercom, again and again and again and again, doing it for years. This one is Aldi all of a sudden had a bunch of wines. I noticed that. I saw him one day and came back a few days later and half of them were gone. They hadn't had any new wines for a while. The pent-up demand just sucked them all up.
Speaker 1:And what we have here today is the 1799 kind of expensive for an aldi one specially selected napa valley brute. It's a. It's a champagne style wine. Now, one of the other wines that they came out with recently was the peaks and tides brute, which was sonoma county. That was 13.99. So it looks like the difference between Sonoma and Napa Valley, according to Aldi, is $4. But actually on Aldi's website there's they're showing this wine to be $19.99. So maybe that didn't go over too well in $17.99. Did better, don't know. But there is a discrepancy there. So what do we have here? Don't know.
Speaker 1:It's made by Rack and Riddle. Rack and Riddle is a huge bubbly maker, a custom bubbly maker. If you have a value-priced bubbly from a producer who doesn't normally make bubbly, that's probably made at Rack and Riddle, because they have all the know-how and the equipment to make sparkling wine. It's not something everybody can do and they can. Now there are in Napa Valley several bubbly producers, big-time bubbly. You got Schramsberg, you got Domaine Canaros, you have I keep trying to think of a few others in there. But there's some big name, really good and kind of expensive wines. They're all $50, $60, $70 champagnes. They're competing with actual champagne wines and this one, it said it's made like champagne. It says champagne method on the front and that's about all there is to it. The alcohol content is 12.5. We don't know how long the second fermentation is. It's 18 months minimum in champagne.
Speaker 1:What it is here, what the grapes are used. Brut normally means that it's Chardonnay with a little bit of Pinot Noir. That's what it normally means, but there are no rules in champagne. It could be anything, but it's probably, since they're trying to do a champagne style wine. So what's going on? Because this is not a vintage select wine. It's not, you know, it's it's and it's made by Rack and Riddle, so they added different vintages. So this is the first year for this wine. So they add different vintages from different. So the some of the wine words and other wines, I don't know, but here's why it might be something different.
Speaker 1:Wines used for sparkling wine, bubbly, champagne style wines are picked earlier. They are made differently. They pick them before they're ripe and then they bring it up to ripeness with all the different techniques they use. At the very end they will take a little bit of sweet wine and pour it in each measured, in each bottle to get brew, to get, to get a little sweet, to get whatever they need. They bring it up to sweetness. So the grapes are all vine if farmed on the vine differently.
Speaker 1:So to get a Napa Valley, you're getting grapes that probably go into a Napa Valley sparkling wine and there's, like I said, there's a big name. There's no cheap Napa Valley sparkling wines. I'm going to take a sip of this one. And you know there's things like clones. There's probably. You know both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are grapes that on the higher end, which clone you use is the good one, and I imagine there's certain clones used in champagne and Napa. Velia wants to try to copy it a little bit to try to get the same feel. So the vineyards just might be pretty good.
Speaker 1:Not that the Sonoma for $13.99 was bad, because there's some good Sonoma sparkling wines too, but Rack and Riddle will have $10 bubblies Every year. Trader Joe's has their Sonoma, has Sonoma and Sonoma County and actually I like the cheaper one. Better for them. The cheaper one better the more expensive one. So we have this $18 bubbly and they give us no information on why. I mean what I just told you about the grapes and the vineyards and all that is me shooting from the hip.
Speaker 1:I'm taking another sip. It's legit. It tastes like champagne. It's legit. It tastes like champagne. I mean it's. If you had a you know, if you're not a champagne connoisseur and they had a champagne on ice and this on ice, you might have a hard time, especially on the more entry level. If there is an entry level of champagne, you'd have a hard time differentiating. This has good acidity, it's got great flavor For $17.99, it's a really good wine.
Speaker 1:But you know, during the summer I mean during the winter, the holidays you get Chandon. It's probably going to be cheaper. Mums are going to be cheaper, pipers are going to be cheaper. They have all these California outposts of these champagne houses that are going to be under $18 on sale at different times in November and December. But $18 for a good bottle of wine, that's bubbly. There's nothing wrong with that. So here we go. So it's the Aldi Special Selected Napa Valley Brut. It's $18. Seems expensive until you taste it. So, adios, that's Domain, dave, keep it cheap. We've got a couple more wines. I've got an organic Cabernet Sauvignon and a white wine from Italy coming up, so we have some fun. So I'll be talking to you in a couple of days. Adios, keep it cheap. Bye-bye.