La Paca Garnacha – Trader Joe’s Top Picks!

Trader Joe’s Top Picks is back! The La Paca Garnacha is the first of our updated recommendations.

Garnacha from Calatayud, Spain.

The La Paca Garnacha is available exclusively at Trader Joe’s and sells for $6.99. Imported by Evaki Inc.

From the bottle:

The best vineyards of Calatayud are situated high on the hillsides, where, despite the poor gravelly soil, the vines produce the finest grapes possible in this arid and desolate region. Only the ripest clusters are chosen, thus producing a wine of considerable depth and finesse including intense aromas of sweet cherries and dark plums.

14.5% Alcohol

In our experience it’s hard to go wrong with Garnacha from the Calatayud, which makes this an easy choice to start our updated examination of Trader Joe’s wines!

In the 5+ years since we’ve started this site, we’ve dumped a lot of wine from TJ’s down the drain. (Seriously, our pipes must be spotless.) To help you avoid this unfortunate situation we will be once again focusing on the best wines from Trader Joe’s over the next couple weeks. As we’ve done many times in the past, we’ve sifted through all the plonk to bring you the very best values on Trader Joe’s shelves. And our first pick in this year’s series is more than worthy.

The 2014 La Paca Garnacha begins with a deep aroma of red cherry, cranberry and other red berries along with a little wintergreen and a touch of baking spice. The medium-bodied wine starts with ripe red fruit in the mouth but an excellent earthiness takes over mid-palate. There’s also plenty of tasty herbal notes and some nice minerality. The whole thing is wonderfully balanced and has a subtle complexity to it which is one of the things we love so much about Garnacha from this region. Where else can you find all this for only $7? It ends long and dry with sweet fruit notes and even a long-lasting hint of root beer. Fabulous!

As always you can find an updated list of our recommended wines from Trader Joe’s as well as more info on their pricing model and some tips and tricks for shopping the store here.