Aldi Hwy 5 Chardonnay 2021- $4.99-Drink Like The French, No!, I am Serious!
I recently talked to a French winemaker that the average French family spent about 5 dollars on their daily bottle of wine.
They drink wine with the meal, not at night as an alcoholic beverage.
We Americans, as a whole, have a different attitude toward wine.
So, is this 5-buck Aldi wine a food wine?
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hey welcome uh domain dayve from cheap
wine fighter.com with another podcast we
write up uh three value price wine
reviews a week uh and when we’re done
with that we plug in the microphone and
well here we
are some people have been doing a uh dry
January though no and I know and we’ve
been doing a cheap January figuring that
a lot of people spent way too much money
over the holidays and we been coming up
with um some inexpensive wine you know
one the things that why I was added uh
French tasting not that long ago and the
wines there like for $25 to $50 they’re
pushing those wines and I asked one of
the wine makers what does the average
French family drink you know they who
who have wine with
um with the uh with lunch and dinner now
most like French families don’t drink
wine at night like Americans will drink
it w at night not during lunch they have
it during the day with their meal we
said about five bucks and well here we
are and uh last summer we did a cheap
wine shootout we had a $4 Two Buck Chuck
Chardonnay I think a $4 lindman bin 65
charday and the highway five charday was
the expensive one of the bunch it was
$499 and uh to our my
surprise the Two Buck Chuck won um I was
expecting lindaman there have been
vintages where I’ve strongly
recommended lindaman but we’re not
talking about that we’re I went back to
the 2021 U vintage of uh Aldi Highway 5
chardonay just to see if I had a wrong
year CU one of the things about in
really inexpensive wine if the
conditions in the vineyard aren’t that
good there’s no money in the budget
to make major changes you’re stuck with
what you got kind of so different
vintages can change and
uh so we went trying this one and the
last this is a $4.99 wine the last day
of January we’ll go a little bit more
upscale in the next ones mainly because
you get more selection um and we want to
try a lot of different wines I always I
never want to drink the same wine twice
I want to keep I want the next wine so
uh this highway five I’m going to take a
sip talk about it
[Music]
first there’s two things I got a a
message from somebody who said that U at
least the highway 5 m low is being
discontinued by
Aldi this is a um say it’s from Modesto
California Modesto is where um ianj
Gallow is if you see Modesto on the
label it’s probably some entity of Ian J
Gallow they’re the largest family-owned
Winery in the United States one of the
largest wineries in the world they have
tons of Vineyard they have tons of great
Vineyards they’re leaders and Vineyard
practices IJ
Gallow you see that in the label is is
good so so that you so having Gallow you
know Bronco wines makes two buck truck U
you figure Aldi would have the advantage
with Gallow rather than Bronco but I
don’t know this is a very light Wiest
12.5% alcohol for California that’s it’s
it’s kind of little uh a sign of
something um being ripe makes the wine
have more sugar and more sugar means it
has more alcohol so when you have grapes
that are less
[Music]
alcohol that that raises questions if
good or bad this is a very light bodied
wine and being a very light body wine
it’s not very complex I typically when I
write up a wine I talk about what comes
first you know then the first flavors
and there’s a mid pel there usually
after the first flavors kind of fade
there’s a second wave of flavors the mid
pallet no mid pallette here everything’s
what’s up front and this is another take
another sip this is like a stew nothing
really sticks
[Music]
out there’s lemons and melons and uh
green apple I even got a bit of cream
I’m not sure where that comes from
stirring the leaves gives you cream
maybe they stir the leaves here leaves
is the dead yeast in the wines kept
during aging whatever aging there
was uh maybe some stone fruit but that’s
it just keeps on going what what’s there
it’s perfectly fine but it’s light it
doesn’t really jump out at you
um since I was you know one of the
things that started me on this a $5 wine
and and in France they have five5 doll
wines with their meal this is maybe uh
pasta with white sauce something simple
not something complicated um cold shrimp
that type of
thing yeah we’re not talking about
anything too complicated uh or too spicy
this won’t this won’t put out the heat
if it’s too spicy it’s not that but it
is there’s a place for it it does taste
good for what it is it does taste good
and I don’t
prefer I prefer wines a little more body
but if you like your wine on the lighter
side this might be right up your alley
and that’s that’s just a preference I’m
not saying this is good or bad or
indifferent it’s not my style because
it’s too light but if you’re someone who
wants that no one you want the delicate
flavors you don’t want the the big that
you want the the acidity that’s backed
off a little bit um you know that’s it’s
all here that’s that’s a place for it’s
a dry wine it’s not
sweet you take another Sip and it’s not
this is my third sip so I kind of you
know I can’t say I didn’t like
[Music]
it little bit of spice there just I
prefer wine a little bit more going on a
little bit more
complicated something to hold my
interest a little better but that’s me
and you might like if you’re looking for
a light bed wine that’s simple but tasty
this could be it for you so like I said
that’s it for that’s it for chap January
2024 and we’ll be going up scale a
little bit coming in h
February see what’s happening it seems
like Aldi and Trader Joe’s are
rearranging their winds and how they do
business so there should be some
interesting wines coming up at least
crossing my fingers so that’s it for me
domain Dave chep wine fighter.com like
us really like your uh podcast if you
like you push the button on Apple
podcast and Spotify does do a lot of
good if you feel like doing it please do
and I appreciate it so adios keep it
cheap and I I’ll be talking to everybody
in a couple days see you or talk to you
later byebye