I arrived at the local Aldi right after tennis, November 6, 2024, the day after the US election, and the day that Aldi's Wine Advent Calendar landed on its floors. The truck bed had lowered the giant cube of advent cartons probably two hours before, and there were only about ten left. I convinced two other women to buy them as I lifted mine in my cart. "I told myself that today would be a disappointing day no matter how the election turned out, so I decided to buy this today - the day it comes out," I told my fellow shoppers, "It will sell out fast."
I had been given a heads up about its arrival from X, my addiction to the platform finally giving me a benefit. Very few in my social circle shop at Aldi. Aldi shoppers tend to be true bargain hunters, either because of necessity or a desire for value. Aldi stores tend to be under overpasses, across train tracks, and have sketchy birds lingering in their parking lots. Needless to say, I have more time, and live closer than others to occasionally scout Aldi for organic produce, dairy, meat, and other products.
I am also a "value" wine seeker. I have a wine certification. Aldi has a reputation in the "discount wine community" (such as it is), as a purveyor of good value wines. On its shelves, it carries basic wines made in a basic manner, that are self-explicit. Examples are: Century Road Chardonnay and Elementalist Pinot Grigio, California Heritage Pinot Noir, and Adventure Series Chianti.
In 2024, Aldi bucked national trends by having its sales of adult beverages double as shoppers sought out bargains at $4 less than average. I hadn't bought wine at Aldi in ten years.
My exploration into value wines began during my official wine tasting classes. Our instructor bought her sample wines from the grocery store. They were reasonably priced, traditional examples of wines from every region. And they were good. She was a Master Som who was buying inexpensive wine at the grocery store. This sung music to my bargain hunter ears. With two babies under two, in a new house, in a new city, learning and writing about wine bargains seemed to be a lifestyle fit, and I could start with my instructor's picks.
Since starting over 10 years ago, my research of "value" wine has been a mishmash of intermittent wine reviews on social media, searching online for quality wine recommendations (shout out to the now retired Wine Curmudgeon and his $10 Hall of Fame), and using discernment when trying to buy wines at the Harris Teeter ("Does the goat on the label mean it's worth buying?"). My few forays into Aldi wines did not suit my taste, or the Wine Curmudgeon's, or my picky husband. I didn't even try to pawn an Aldi bottle on a friend. Thus, why the Aldi Wine Advent Calendar?!
I felt like I had been let in on a secret when I heard its drop date. I needed hope for a good holiday season, and 24, 150 oz bottles of wine from around the world for $69.99 demonstrated that hope. It would also put my taste buds as a certified wine educator to the test. Knowing Aldi wine's reputation for simple bottles of plain grape, I knew the daily tastings would give my palate the vindication it deserved.
Instead of choosing each wine in Advent order, reading the label, and tasting the wine, we decided to guess each wine blindly. My husband would randomly chose a wine each evening, red, or white, depending on the the dinner menu, and he would hide the label with a paper cover as he pulled the wine from the box. We would then taste and discuss.
Our first night of Advent, we had salmon, so my husband pulled a white wine from crate. We confidently guessed California chardonnay, and smugly sipped it down. This was going to be easy! We had years of expertise in value wines! Our second night, we had meatballs, so my husband pulled out a red. We sniffed, swirled, tasted, and sniffed some more. "It's a Chianti," I said. "It's a cabernet sauvignon," he said. The grand reveal showed us, "Spanish blend." BLENDS! This was a glitch in the exercise. How do you guess a human grape creation? But, we thought, that's okay. How many blends could there be in the advent calendar? The wine stores have only one small section titled "red blends". There are 24 days of Advent.
The third night we misidentified an Australian shiraz ("Well, that's okay, we never drink those. Ever"). The fourth night the calendar put forth an Italian merlot ("There are merlots in Italy?). The fifth night we got a Portuguese blend ("It did have a darker red than others."). We continued surprising our tastebuds (misidentifying) with South African blends, Chilean blends, Austrian blends, Zinfandel from France, and a Hungarian blend. Not one Chianti in 24 wines from around the world. When we did finally pull a generic California Cabernet Sauvignon, it was promptly misidentified and poured down the drain. We popped open a quality bottle of Cabernet to soothe our scorned egos. Wasn't Lent the period in the church calendar for learning experiences?
By Christmas Eve, our tongues were confused, our noses were bereft, and our children were mocking us. We had guessed two out of 24 wines - thank you Rose for being pink. We acknowledged Christ's birth by opening a bottle of Chateaneuf-du-Pape that paired beautifully with our gourmet burgers. We toasted to our good fortune of tasting exquisite wine. We toasted that we had made it to Christmas, that the presents were wrapped, the table was set, and we were ready to relax into the holidays.
We were hopeful about the future, and we were going to buy better wine.
