--trader joe's petit paso robles merlot reserve...

[ron l edmiston]

some folks over to watch florida southern college, so close by, win the division 2 national collegiate basketball championship..
they brought a few bottles of the above merlot 2013..
just about as nice as the andretti we were pouring --- the difference in price spread $30+ a bottle..

i would purchase this for our use & bet ya a dime-to-a-dollar that a retired military friend that is a self-proclaimed fermented grape connoisseur..,
hard to sniff/taste out if i poured the trader joe's into a high $ label bottle..

ronnie

[spopepro]

some folks over to watch florida southern college, so close by, win the division 2 national collegiate basketball championship..
they brought a few bottles of the above merlot 2013..
just about as nice as the andretti we were pouring --- the difference in price spread $30+ a bottle..

i would purchase this for our use & bet ya a dime-to-a-dollar that a retired military friend that is a self-proclaimed fermented grape connoisseur..,
hard to sniff/taste out if i poured the trader joe's into a high $ label bottle..

ronnie

The TJs buyers sometimes really knock it out of the park with finding fantastic juice from producers who, for legal or marketing reasons, have more wine than they are able to label. I pick up a couple of bottles of this at TJs whenever I see it:

It doesn't show up every year, and from what I can tell it's honest top-notch Barolo that can't be labeled that because of DOCC limitations to keep the prices high. You might have stumbled onto something like that. I might have to go find a bottle myself.

[Mark Kelly]

What is probably actually happening is that they've exceeded their legal yield limit (in Barolo the limit is 8t / hA @ 65% = 52 hl / hA), so they de-classify the excess.

The French used to do this, I once bought some 59 Bourgogne blanc which came from the vineyard of Montrachet (where the yields are even stricter, IIRC it's 30 hl / hA) but they've changed the law so now if you exceed the limit you have to de-classify the entire production, not just the excess. The practice stopped overnight. Funny that.