Trader Joe’s Reserve Paso Robles Syrah – Smooth and Easy

Our next Trader Joe’s Top Pick, the Trader Joe’s Reserve Paso Robles Syrah.

76% Syrah, 12% Petit Verdot and 12% Malbec from Paso Robles, California.

The Trader Joe’s Reserve Paso Robles Syrah is available exclusively at Trader Joe’s and sells for $9.99.

From the bottle:

Bold and complex with black cherry, blueberry, violet, and toasty oak notes leading to polished tannins and a long smooth finish.

14.6% Alcohol

Next up in our Trader Joe’s Top Picks series is a wine we’ve recommended before and that we were excited to get back to as it’s from one of our very favorite varietals. Before we get to that I have to ask…what’s with the extremely heavy bottle on this wine? Seriously, this thing weighs a ton!

It always makes me wary when wineries use very heavy bottles, like they’re trying to pull one over on us. There must be a marketing study somewhere (and it turns out there certainly is) that says consumers equate heavy bottles with higher quality but in my mind I can’t help but think about how much of the money I just paid is going to shipping these monstrosities!

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s get to the wine, shall we? The 2013 Trader Joe’s Reserve Paso Robles Syrah Lot 100 begins with a lovely aroma full of ripe dark fruits, lots of violets, some cola and earthy notes and even a whiff of bacon and tobacco. Tasting the wine shows it to be super smooth with plenty of juicy dark fruit mixed with more cola and earthy notes. Spicy oak notes lead into the long, dry finish which also features a return of the tobacco notes from the nose and even a bit of minerality. This is a great example of Syrah at a great price. We liked it even better than the 2012 which we highly recommended. Bulk Buy!

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.