A Signature Wine Tasting

I recently watched a video from Esther Mobley at the San Francisco Chronicle where she tasted a lineup of Costco wines. The question was simple. Which Costco bottles are worthy of your holiday party? I was intrigued.

Her top pick turned out to be a Kirkland Barolo for just twenty dollars. The well known and respected entry level Pio Cesare Barolo sits at nearly eighty dollars at our local Total Wine. This felt like a potential bargain.

I had to try it.

My greatest wine tasting moment was a Barolo. Carrie and I visited Italy in 2000 back when we were young and still figuring out what moved us in a glass and what our wine style would become. It was my first trip to Europe and I was already falling hard for the wines. They had almost no oak influence and far more acidity than what I was used to at home.

We found ourselves in a private tasting room with Aldo Conterno, proprietor of one of the great Barolo estates. He poured wine into huge goblet shaped glasses, the kind you see everywhere now but hardly ever saw back then.

I put my nose in the glass. It smelled good but not very expressive. He had just opened the bottle and told us to keep swirling and smelling. Over the next few minutes the wine transformed. It started tight, then slowly unfurled more fruit, then lifted into floral aromatics and layers of complexity I can still feel even if I cannot name every detail. That is still the best wine I have ever tasted.

So I bought the Kirkland Barolo, excited to open it at our staff holiday party.

It was a dud.

The aromatics were fine but the mouthfeel was thin with too much acidity for my palate. Reverse Wine Snob liked it though, giving it a solid ninety-two to ninety-three points. No wrong answers in wine.

About a week later I asked Carrie, wife and winemaking partner in crime, to pick up some Veuve Clicquot while she was at Costco. She came home with a bottle and also a bottle of Kirkland Champagne (because she’s rad).

Now I was excited. Kirkland wine part two.

We opened it with our twenty one year old daughter. It smelled fine and tasted a bit tart without that creamy brioche character you expect from a nice Champagne. On a whim I took a sip from Carrie’s glass. Both were Riedel but hers was higher-end crystal and wow, what a difference. The wine was quite nice from her glass, although our daughter preferred the entry level glassware. No wrong answers in wine. This was no Piper-Heidsieck, but it was only twenty dollars.

At this point I was fully committed.

I remembered tasting a Kirkland Châteauneuf-du-Pape years ago. I had no recollection of the wine itself, only the fancy bottle with embossed papal keys. Our daughters were heading to the big city the next day, Folsom, home to our nearest Costco some thirty five minutes away. I asked them to pick up a bottle. I had to do the trio. Rhône varieties are our thing after all.

Costco was out of Châteauneuf du Pape.

Regroup.

A week later I came home with two Kirkland Signature wines. The trio became a quartet. I replaced the missing CdP bottle with a Vacqueyras, often described as the little brother to Châteauneuf du Pape – same core grapes, Grenache, Syrah, maybe Mourvèdre, but at a fraction of the price.

This one was a dud too. There was some nice fruit and decent mouthfeel but also a fake toasted marshmallow note that reminded me of cheap tequila. I am looking at you Camarena.

Luckily the fourth wine saved the experiment.

The Chablis Premier Cru was quite nice, showing tropical notes and a malolactic-like creaminess without the oak you expect from California Chardonnay. Carrie and I both agreed we would have picked it out as Chenin Blanc if we had not known what it was.

Because I can, and because we usually live on the other side of the ratings game, here are my scores on the hundred point scale:

• 2021 Kirkland Barolo – 87 points

• Kirkland Champagne – 90 points

• 2023 Kirkland Vacqueyras – 85 points

• 2023 Kirkland Chablis Premier Cru – 92 points

What did we learn?  Costco wine can be good and the price is well, you know, Costco. And if you love the bottles we did not, or dislike the one we liked most, that is perfectly fine.  No wrong answers in wine.

And thank you to Esther Mobley for the inspiration.

Co-winemaker,
Josh Bendick

But wait there’s more! We tried the Vacqueyras the next day and you know what?  It’s not that bad. Carrie said “there’s a lot more going on here.”  That weird marshmallow thing blew off and the fruit was showing quite nicely.  But the rating stands…no take backs  : P