Purple Moon Shiraz 2005

Price: $4
Maker: Purple Moon Winery, Manteca, California
Varietal: Shiraz
Packaging: 750 ml bottle, artificial cork
Alcohol: 13.5%
Our Rating: 8 out of 10

Purple Moon Shiraz 2005 was the least expensive wine we picked up during our recent Trader Joe’s visit. It’s attractively labeled, and a glance at the bottle would suggest a more expensive wine. The nose, too, was promising – nice juicy berries with spice and a hint of licorice. On the palate, though, this Shiraz is all fruit, all the time. The label calls the wine “fruit forward,” which in this case is an understatement. The flavor is full of sweet cherries, plums, and raspberries – there’s just not much else. Even for a low-end Shiraz, we’d like a peppery finish and a bit more complexity. Having said that, this wine isn’t unpleasant – it’s fruity character, smooth nature, and relative sweetness go down easily enough, and it’s far more drinkable than some wines in that price range that have unpleasant off-notes. We waffled on our own rating – this Shiraz isn’t the best wine we’ve scored an 8, but it’s more to our taste than those we’ve scored lower.

This wine is apparently only sold by Trader Joe’s. We found slightly mixed reactions on the Web, perhaps reflecting differences between vintages. Cheap Wine Reviews liked it a lot, and said, “Would buy again, without doubt.” In the 2006 San Diego International Wine Competition, Purple Moon Shiraz 2004 scored only a bronze. World Wine Weblog considered the 2003 version “great bang for the buck.”