Opinion on Kendall Jackson Wines?

[Vern_in_IL]

Vinters Reserve vs Grand Reserve Merlot?

 

[Imp4]

Wine is all about drinking what you like in my opinion.

Many blind taste tests have demonstrated that 'experts' in this field can't tell $10 stuff from the $100 stuff.

Marketing to the extreme....

 

[SevenBizzos]

The Vitner's is the standard "grocery store" level. I've found these to be variable year to year with some of them turning out a good product. That was my semi-limited experience with them and I just stopped bothering with them.

The Grand is the higher tier and has better QC.

 

[Pelican]

Everyone has different taste buds; drink what you like.

There is a lot of affectation in the wine industry such as sucking air through your lips to mix with the liquid and create a whistling sound to bring forth the various "flavours". Totally useless; if you were sitting at the table, good manners would forbid this kind of behaviour, so what's the point? One can, however, swirl the wine around your gums, this will give you 99% of the flavours of sucking air without all the noise

 

[tom slick]

I don't have an opinion on their wines but they are long-time good customers of the company I work for. They use our equipment in some of their vineyards. In fact I'm involved with two maintenance projects with them right now.

 

[Vuflanovsky]

My opinion is that I'd try to find the "value wine" equivalent that sells for ~$4-$7 less per bottle and see if you like it...as I agree with the idea that you like what you like and that can be much more important to me than a winery name or variant thereof.

On the cheap end, there are chains here in California that sell Napa/Sonoma wines as house branded options that are perfectly drinkable and some of them approach the more expensive options in quality for considerably less. Between internet research and an outlet like that, I'd probably approach it that way unless you're locked into KJ wines for whatever reason.