Chuck 2006: Admirably Mediocre

Have I mentioned how much I hate Trader Joe’s?

A little over a year ago, when the California-based grocer moved into Minnesota, and located their inaugural store about a mile from my house in St. Louis Park, the POLICE had to be called in to direct traffic. It was like Lourdes: people streaming in from St. Paul, from Red Wing, from Kansas, for all I know, to witness this retail wonder. The streets in our neighborhood were a mess for weeks. I had to drive to Golden Valley just to buy coffee and bagels.

So about a month later, when I finally walked into the place myself — this magnificent edifice that so many had traveled so far to experience — I expected to see a bright light and hear a chorus of angels. Instead, I found myself inside a garishly-painted space stocked with haphazard piles of "natural" foods. Only this was the thing. I’m used to my natural food being, you know, natural. But here, at TJ, the apples weren’t bare-naked and glossy and gloriously orchard-like; they were packaged four to a bulbous plastiform container. There were aisles full of fancy [high-fat] multi-colored chips and pre-assembled kits to make various incredibly basic homemade things — salsa and guac and such. Also chocolate "energy" bars, pressed packages of cheese, pump bottles of lotion.

I passed up the fruit encased in crude oil and went to the dairy section for some plain yogurt. Not yak-milk yogurt, mind you, nothing fancy. Didn’t even have to be organic, though that would have been nice. But I was out of luck. This place had Chocolate Eclair yogurt and Nut-Berry Crunch. All the Lucky Charms varieties of yogurt in bright, rainbow colors. No plain.

In addition, there was no bulk section: no whole wheat pastry flour, no rice, no white popcorn, no loose leaf tea. There were, however, dozens of different flavors of Trader Joe’s sauces, soups, mixes, cookies, and cakes. In other words, junk. Finally, I bought some tangerine-scented lotion, just to say I’d been. Took it home, used it, broke out in a rash, threw it away. Until this week, that was the last time I was in Trader Joe’s.

Finally, the traffic’s died down. There are two more Twin Cities TJ locations — an outpost in Maple Grove and brand-spanking new one in Woodbury — so the burden on St. Louis Park has eased up. Plus, I’ve been hearing and hearing (and hearing) about the so-called Two Buck Chuck, which because we’re in Minnesota actually is THREE Buck Chuck (or, more precisely, 2.99 Buck Chuck — but that doesn’t sound as good), and especially the Charles Shaw Chardonnay 2005 which won all sorts of blind taste test wine awards.

So yesterday, during the sunny, windy peak of a gorgeous autumn afternoon, I walked over to Trader Joe’s and stepped inside. I’d love to continue grumbling, but I must admit, things have improved. The apples were piled in a respectable pyramid this time; the dairy case did contain a couple containers of plain yogurt in and amongst the sparkly, sugary tubs. The aisles, once again, were stack-packed with chips, crackers, and Annie’s instant dinners — the original ersatz organic fare. But Trader Joe’s is, after all, not The Wedge, but rather, I’ve learned, the Super America of sandal-wearing yuppie-hippie-Boomer types who love their psychedelic mac and cheese and wouldn’t know how to cook a pot of quinoa (or pronounce it, for that matter) if their lives depended on it.

Next, I went into the wine store, where I learned that the 2005 Chard that was so widely talked about has all sold out and what they’re hawking now, for $3 a pop, is the 2006. So I bought a bottle, which the cashier kindly double-bagged for my mile-long walk home. I treated this wine like a prized White Bordeaux from 1998: chilling it at a careful angle, opening it as dusk fell, decanting it gently into a crystal glass. I took a sip and then another. And I had to admit, grudgingly, that it didn’t suck.

Like most inexpensive party wines, the TBC Chard 2006 is a little frothy when it first meets the mouth, and it causes the tongue to go a little puckery as it slides down the sides. It’s bright and simple — like the sun in a child’s drawing — full of lemony fruit and not a lot else. But what’s remarkable is what it doesn’t have: a sour, metallic, or too-sugary aftertaste. It’s rare, in fact, to find a dirt cheap wine that finishes this clean.

Still, I was cranky about it — that plain yogurt incident just weighing on me — and I wanted to prove myself wrong. So I did a blind taste test of my own. When my husband came home, I handed him a glass and barked, "Tell me what you think." So without even putting his briefcase down he tasted and smiled and said, "Not bad. It’s a little sweet maybe. But there’s something really good about it, like a nice mid-price Viognier."

Well, there you have it. It wasn’t the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, I grant you, but a random test in my living room, performed by a curmudgeonly wine critic (can a woman be a curmudgeon?) and a well-traveled software developer says it is so. If you’re looking for a profoundly ordinary but inoffensive bottle of white wine that costs less than your Sunday New York Times, there is, a legitimate reason to go to Trader Joe’s. Just don’t drive down my street, OK?