Recently on the hunt for some new bottles of red wine, we stopped into our local Trader Joe’s to see if we could find anything cheap that we might enjoy.
As luck would have it, there was an end cap display of several decent looking options and I picked the Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2020.
You see, I love a Shiraz, especially if it comes from Australia.
So, I was pretty stoked to pick up this bottle at less than $10.
If you’re a Shiraz fan as well, then keep reading to see how this one faired with my unsophisticated palate.
My Initial Thoughts
So, I went into this fully expecting the Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2020 to be good because I’ve never had a Shiraz that I didn’t like.
What I really love about this type of red wine is that it’s typically consistent across the board, compared to some other popular options.
So, the back label on this bottle says to expect tasting notes of cherry, blackberry, with a hint of spice spice, cloves, mocha and a touch of oak.
As a side note here, whenever a label proclaims “spice” as a tasting note, I get a bit worried because I’ve had bottles in the past where the “spice” flavor was really just tobacco…and I really hate wines like that.
And to be honest, I don’t always love the oak taste, so that needs to be kinda light for me to be able to enjoy the wine.
Well, day one of drinking for this bottle, I was really glad we’d bought it.
What I got was the typical dark berries flavor that I expect from a Shiraz, with maybe a slight hint of vanilla.
However, after day one, the flavor changed up a bit, which I don’t always notice with wines.
For the Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2020 though, the secondary flavors really popped more after that first day.
I got more of the spice, with was sort of an earth meets tobacco, and the light oak flavor.
While I thought it didn’t taste as good as a the first day, it was still good.
And my the third tasting, I was totally fine with it.
Over at Vivino, it currently has a rating of 3.6/5 from over 600 reviews currently.
However, that rating is for all the vintages and not just the 2020 vintage, so do note that.
In fact, not all of the vintages are from South Australia
But possibly the best thing about the Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2020 is it’s price – just $7.99 a bottle!
What a steal, eh?
For us, this red wine is a definite ‘yes’ for any kind of drinking that calls for red wine.
With a price of $7.99, this is a great value for the money.
However, I should note that this is not exactly the best Shiraz that I’ve ever had, but I will certainly be buying it again.
