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- Trader Joe's line of Charles Shaw wines — also known as "Two-Buck Chuck" — are cheap.
- Business Insider's retail desk recently did a wine tasting with a number of these wines.
- We universally loathed the Charles Shaw white zinfandel.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
- And to hear the full story behind Two-Buck Chuck, subscribe to Business Insider's podcast, "Household Name."
You can pick up a bottle of Trader Joe's Charles Shaw wine for just $3.99.
So I almost feel silly complaining about the quality of wine that costs less than a venti latte at Starbucks. The stuff goes by the nickname "Two-Buck Chuck," after all. It's not like Trader Joe's is hoodwinking us with this stuff.
Still, at Business Insider's workplace wine tasting, a few of the Charles Shaw bottles went down pretty easy. My four colleagues and I even enjoyed a few of the cheap red wines.
Read more: We taste-tested 8 of Trader Joe's 'Two-Buck Chuck' wines. Here's how they ranked from worst to best.
But I'm afraid I can't say the same for the first wine we tasted that evening: the white zinfandel. In fact, when I took my first sip of that bright pink drink, I couldn't say much of anything at all. I mostly just winced.
I'm not a wine snob. From an oenological perspective, I'm pretty much a philistine and not a particularly picky one, at that. But the white zinfandel was something else — sickly sweet with a burning kick and a stubborn aftertaste. For me, it called to mind candy and regret.
"It tastes like a headache," one reviewer wrote. Another colleague likened the taste to that of a "melted Jolly Rancher."
We all gave the white zinfandel rock-bottom ratings. I'd say that, if you're in the market for a cheap bottle of Charles Shaw, the zin is the one to avoid.
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