What To Know About Aldi's Award-Winning $10 Bottle Of Wine

Budget grocer Aldi has its downside, what with the inconvenience of having to rent a cart and bring your own bags, but it still has legions of fans due to its low prices on items like meat, milk, and let's not forget those Special Buys. Another thing in-the-know shoppers appreciate is Aldi's small but decent booze selection. Okay, maybe most Aldi beers are just so-so, but their wines are worth the trip even if you're not running low on Belmont Brookie Dough ice cream and Mama Cozzi's pizza.

While Aldi's best-known wine might be Winking Owl, which is pretty much their version of Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck, their wine selection also includes a number of higher-end wines that are good enough to go up against much pricier bottles. In fact, one such Aldi offering was just named best wine of 2020 by Product of the Year USA.

This award-winning wine is the Aldi-exclusive Quarter Cut Bourbon Barrel-Aged Cabernet Sauvignon, and it is priced at an unbelievable $9.99. It comes from a California vineyard, and the label describes it as having "distinctive notes of vanilla, black cherry and dried herbs," with a rich flavor ascribed to the fact that the wine, as its name implies, was aged in charred barrels that once held bourbon whiskey. It comes in at 14.5 ABV, so on the high side for a non-fortified wine.

Apart from the one award, this Aldi wine hasn't received too much attention from wine critics. The Wine Protagonist did test it out, however, and posted the following review to their Facebook page: "Overall it was decent — the nose is straight up barrels — oak, hints of vanilla, even some tobacco, with black cherry as the dominate fruit aroma. Deep garnet color. For taste, the black cherry carried through, with notes of blackberry and spice." The wine was compared to a Cooper & Thief cab sav which, according to Wine-Searcher, is currently priced between about $40 and $65 per bottle.

So is this wine really the best of 2020? Since we're only two months into the year in question, it's really a bit early to say. Still, for under 10 bucks, the Quarter Cut cab sav is well worth checking out the next time you're back in Aldi's wine aisle stocking up on Winking Owl.