Sommelier Ranked Every Costco Wine (Ultimate Costco Wine Tier List)

Everybody loves Costco. In fact, one of the things we all love most about it is its house brand, Kirkland Signature. They make almost everything from a two and a half pound bag of tortilla chips to 200 square feet of parchment paper. But that's not all. They also make this, Kirkland Signature wine. You might not know this, but Costco is America's biggest wine retailer. In 2023, it sold $7 billion in alcohol, and wine made up over half of that. That's more than the GDP of Maldives. And it's all thanks to one person, Annette Alvarez-Peters. You might never have heard of her, but industry experts call her one of the most important people in the wine industry. Annette was the head of Costco's wine buying team for years. So if you saw a bottle in the warehouse, her team picked it. She turned a tiny operation selling only a few thousand bottles into a global wine buying powerhouse. But here's the thing, Annette's approach has been controversial to say the least. In a 2012 interview, she said her approach to buying and selling wine is no different than the approach she would use in other parts of the warehouse to buy and sell things like televisions, clothing, and even toilet paper. So it's with that framing that I genuinely wonder if there is any chance that these wines are good. Clearly, Costco buying wine in the same way as toilet paper has been great for their business. But has it been great for their wines? Are these just cheap, mass-produced, and soulless? Or is there something to learn here? Maybe a more detached, rational, strategic approach to buying wine leads to great wine at a great value. Well, today we're going to find out because I bought every single Kirkland Signature wine I could find at my local Costco for this epic wine tasting of literally everything Kirkland Signature. By the way, I'm Dustin. I've tasted literally thousands of wines and it's always bothered me how people who know about wine make it so snobby and complicated. I'd like to change that, so welcome to my channel where I make fun, helpful videos for non-wine people. By the end of this video, you will know if any Kirkland Signature wines are worth your hard-earned money. To keep it fair and to reduce bias, I'm going to blind taste and score each of these 18 wines. And I mean truly blind. I've got no idea what's in each glass, but you will get to see them in a far more satisfying way, from least expensive to most expensive. But me? I'm in the door. Are you ready? Let's get to boozing. All right. It's just a little bump of sweet tart kind of deal. Let's give it a taste. This wine is honestly a bit of a disaster. It has that really nice sweet tart bump thing going on at the beginning, but like, oh man, this has that horrible, horrible cheap wine cloying sourness. It's the sort of taste that I think a lot of us, at least maybe the first time we ever had wine, you know, I know some of my earliest memories are my great-grandma drinking Boone's Farm or like Strawberry Blossom or something. And I was probably 11 and at Thanksgiving or something, and I was like, Grandma, can I try the Boone's Farm? And she's like, here you go. And you just, as a kid, your palate can't handle this like sharp cloying sourness, but still buoyed by all of the sweetness. This is a wine that has that sharp cloying sourness of extremely cheap wine, but without the sweetness to buoy it up. It honestly just is really unfun to drink. And it is technically wine. And so I can't give it an F, but so yeah, this is a D. It's a D every day of the week. Let's check out what it is. It's the wine world's mortal enemy, Pinot Grigio. The wine of just alcoholic Long Island stepmothers. Like, this is just what I think that you all drink. Rojos. Los Rojos. Let's give this thing a Snipperisky. That actually smells like a little bit like fine wine. It has some, a little bit of complexity. It still has a little bit of like a cheap kind of overnote, but it's, it's interesting. This is worth your time to smell. So, which is something I think we all strive for as humans. Can I just say, we clearly, we have aisles dedicated to being like smell worthy. This wine achieves it. Well, hot damn, we have a pretty good wine here. I am honestly, I'm really enjoying it. It's complex. It's a little fruity. It's peppery. It's also has this grassiness to it. This is a very pleasurable wine to drink. I do have to say it has a bit of a bracing, mouthwashing, menthol-y undercurrent to it. It's got a bit of a bouncer up front that's kind of weeding people out. If you're not accustomed to drinking wine, if you don't have a wine drinking palate, this might be a bit much for you. But if you, you know, you drink fine wine here and there, like, I think you're going to like this. With the flaws in mind and the fact that the things that are going on don't have a ton of clarity, I have to give it a week B. But, and so for a week B, I would expect to pay between $15 and $20 for a wine of this quality. So let's see what it is. Poppy Loves Bordeaux. This is $6.89. This is an excellent wine for $6.89. This wine, where this is going to shine is any sort of dinner party. Like I highly recommend, bring it to those kind of like, you're just going to your mom and dad's house or your in-laws or something for like just a quick Sunday dinner. Like not a big formal thing, not Thanksgiving, special thing, but just like, they're just expecting you to be there, but not expecting you to bring something. Bring this. So for that, this is good wine buying advice, right? We did something helpful. If this has been helpful, consider the like and subscribe button. It's really helpful for the channel. It smells like nothing. If you didn't tell me that there was something in it, I would think the glass was empty. It's not particularly interesting to smell. Let's see what it tastes. All right. This wine, honestly, it ain't bad. It's pretty good. It's not going to win any awards, but it's pretty good. It actually has some character and some spiciness and you know, it does have a little bit of like kind of menthol-y mouthwash thing, but I'm pretty sure a little bit of air that would just quite literally evaporate. Really quickly before I reveal the rating for this wine, I just want to ask if this video has been valuable for you at all. You'd consider hitting the like button. They say, Richard, they say you got to hit it. And you know what you got to do? The subscribe button, Richard, you got to smash the subscribe button. So if you are experiencing value, what are we looking for, Richard? Hitting and smashing. Yeah. So just consider it's super helpful to the channel. And also if there's anything, you know, here that you're interested in exploring, like the wines in any of the videos, or you know, what kind of gear we use to shoot these videos, please check out the links in the description. You know, I have some affiliate links down there that really help out the channel. So if you want to pick up anything like the wines, camera, glasses, anything like that, it's a big help. So with that, this wine is a solid C, $10 to $12. Let's see what it is. Oh, it's the Malbec. How interesting. Oh, this is a great value then. This is only $7. All right, moving on. Let's give this little guy a smell. This is light and airy. It absolutely has this essence of fresh cut grass. And it's that totally pleasurable kind of vacation golf course, fresh cut grass. This one's pretty good. This wine is balanced. It has a lot of really basic tasting experiences going on. Like it has sweetness and sour. It has a little bit of like just fresh effervescence and citrus. Like it isn't the sort of wine that you need to have a background in wine tasting to appreciate because all the words that someone who's really into wine would use to describe it, you probably would use too. I like it. It's just a little too simple, but you know, for those reasons, I think it's still successful in its own way. I think this is a C wine. I think I would expect to pay between $10 and $12 for wine of this quality. Let's take a look. Oh yeah, this one's great. Costco's pretty well known for their Sauvignon Blanc. All right, let's try the next one. We continue. Okay, let's give it a smell. That smells nice. That is refreshing. That is bright. That is grassy and vegetal in a totally positive managed way. Like this is a very refreshing, fresh springtime kind of like, it smells like if your neighbor has a really, really well manicured yard and they just mowed the grass and you're in your yard and you can just kind of smell the whiff of it. Like it's nice. It's a nice smell. This wine smells really nice. Yeah, let's give it a taste. This is pretty good. Like this is a successful wine. It's not knocking on the door of fine wine at all, but this wine has some actual clarity in terms of some citrus notes. You can really taste some of that grassiness. It also has like a salty sea breeze thing going on. This is a delicate, lovely wine. And if it had just a bit more complexity, a little bit more to it, it would firmly assert itself into fine wine territory, but it's knocking on the door. So for that, I'm going to give it a strong C. And so I would expect to pay between $12 and $15 for wine of this quality. So let's take a look at what it is. All right, what is it now? Oh, this is very surprising. I'm not going to lie. It's kind of going off script from what Sonoma County Chardonnay is. So in a way it's a little unsuccessful, but it's really, really good. And on its own merits, it's a great wine. So yeah, strong C. There's wine in my hand and I'm going to now stick it up my nose. It's light. It's fresh. It's crisp smelling, which is always nice. Like, you know, there's those laundry detergents and things that are like, the smell is fresh linen. And it's like, that's what they're supposed to do. It's like, they make the smell of the thing they're there to accomplish. And that's like a weird cart horse chicken egg thing. This kind of has that. It like smells like refreshing, but that's the outcome. How is it in the income? Oh my God. This is like Lucky Charms wine. This is terrible. This is so sweet. It's disgusting. I am not like that kind of person. Like, I just want to clarify, like there are people who are all hoity-toity about wine and they're like, it's sweet. I only drink dry wines. I love sweet wines. There are wines that have a time and a place where sweetness is totally desirable. And it's like exactly what you want. This is not accomplishing that goal. This tastes like someone dumped sugar into it. It is cloying. It is completely off-putting. I haven't had a wine in recent memory with such a bracing experience of a sugar rush. And to that end, it does not taste like wine. This is an F. This wine has completely failed on any level to achieve something reminiscent of wine. Like we're here to drink wine. Let's see what it is. I think it's that Prosecco. Oh, it's the Moscato D'Aosta. That doesn't surprise me. That makes a lot of sense now. Get this out of me. Pump my stomach. Yeah, this wine's not terribly interesting to smell. It just kind of smells like sweet tarts. I wouldn't write home about this one. I wouldn't have any. Let's see what this thing tastes like. It smells pretty interesting. It smells like sweet tarts. This wine isn't very good. This wine is like somehow sweet, but also rancid. And it's not rancid in the sense that it's gone bad. It's rancid in the sense that it never had a chance. It tastes like deeply, deeply, deeply terrible wine. It's like, what is that word? Whenever it has no clarity, it can't remind you of anything besides the taste of bad wines you've had in the past. Total walk right by this one. And I have to say it is wine. Like it is successfully wine. I would have no doubt about it if someone served me this, that I was drinking wine. So I can't give it an F. This is a D every day of the week. Let's check out what it is. This wine is really not representing the type of wine that is typical of a Cote de Provence. Wines from Provence, rosé wines, are typically, they are full of minerality. They are in some would say bracing. They are almost hard to drink, but in this very refreshing way where it's almost like you're getting a snap, crackle, pop of insane refreshment. You're like, whoa. It's kind of similar to, you know, like a little bit of like a mouthwash thing, but in a managed, pleasurable way. You get the point. It's a D. Don't buy this one. Don't ever buy it. All right, let's move on. We're getting going. This is a glorious failure. Fetch me more vine, vine bench, please. Let's give this thing a little whipperini. Oh, this one totally has that whole like fecal matter thing we talked about. It just has like a touch of feces to it. This one is honestly coming across as a little bit of flaw. Sometimes that can be like an interesting little note that's added to a wine that, you know, you're like, oh, this smells like something familiar to me. I kind of like it. Like maybe it's like, it kind of reminds you of your own brand. I don't know. This wine is a very, it's like a heavy strangers. It's just, it's too much. It's overpowering. It's making this wine something that I don't want to smell anymore. So now I'm going to taste it. I'll do the only logical thing a person should do at this moment is they should taste that wine. Let's give it a taste. I hate this wine. Like I really, really don't like it. It is sweet and cloying, but it's also sour. And sometimes that's great. Like sweet and sour chicken. That's delicious. Like it is hard to drink. That smell isn't going away. And now I feel like it's on my breath. I don't want to ever drink this wine again, but it is wine. It's fully wine any day of the week. This is wine. So I can't give it an F, but for sure only drink it if it's free at a wedding. But even then, imagine that wedding. Everyone's just like, anyone else feel like this wine tastes like farts. Like they're all in their breath. It's like fart breath. You get the point. I'm a little afraid to look at what this one is. It's the big boy. This is, doesn't smell like too much. It smells a little bit like red wine. It has a little bit of heaviness to it, but it's neither pleasant nor unpleasant. I wouldn't say it's a flaw or, or an attribute. It's just kind of there. Yeah, it's just there at the moment. We're coming after smelling, aren't we? We're going to give it a taste. Okay. This wine, it's just not really doing anything for me, frankly. It's definitely not helping itself in any particular way. Like it doesn't have anything very interesting about it. It doesn't smell very interesting. It doesn't taste very interesting. It does have some flaws present in it. It has a kind of an undercurrent of menthol-y mouthwash-y something or other. I think it's a weak C. I think I would never want to pay more than $10 for wine of this quality, but you know, it's okay. It's not going to kill anyone. Let's see what it is. Oh, I'm a little surprised by this. This is a Pinot Noir is a little interesting. I would say this is another example of a wine that isn't really living up to the kind of promise made on the label. Pinot Noirs from Carneros tend to be pretty fruity and bold and drinkable. This honestly has a little bit of an old world vibe. Like it's a little bit austere and bracing. I think a lot of people who are thinking Pinot Noir when they pick this off the shelf are going to be pretty disappointed. But if you go into it with an open mind, you know, I guess you would be right on the money because it's exactly $10. So you can do better. Okay. Ooh, a red one. All right, let's give it a smell-a-rini. This smells super manufactured. This smells like an industrial line process. Sometimes I like to say it smells supply chain optimized. This smells supply chain optimized. There's little air fresheners, little paper air fresheners, a little pine tree. It's got like the tiniest little bit and it smells as fake and industrial as those do. Let's give it a taste-a-rini. Since we gave it a scent-a-rini, Richard, we might as well give it a taste-a-rini. It is leaving me with just the most rank, foul, like funk. Like, I feel like I need to go brush my teeth right now because of this whole, you know, needing to brush one's teeth. It would be really hard to get through a glass or two of this. So it has to be a D. This is a D. The D every day of the week. What is it? Okay, I'm not done. Shit, I'm not done. Oh, the other format I get to be done, but I got to keep going here. This is disappointing Zinfandel. Zinfandel is absolutely one of the best bargain wines that you can find. What a lot of people don't know is that the Napa Valley region, which, you know, Sonoma is right next to it, so it's kind of included in that in a way. The whole, like, greater Napa, Northern California region was built on the back of Zinfandel. Like, the original old vines are all from Zinfandel. The Cabernet Sauvignon craze happened, you know, decades later. So the thing that Napa, like, really has history making is Zin. And this is, like, not classic Napa or Sonoma Zin. This is just, well, all those terrible things I said. So definitely avoid this one. It's only 10 bucks, but it's not worth your time. You should only drink this thing if it's free at a wedding. Well, it's red. That actually smells pretty nice. That is not completely complex, but it's nice. It's not going to win any awards. In no point would I be able to describe a single note, but it's overall pleasant. It smells kind of like nice red wine. I am stunned. That actually isn't bad. That's pretty good. It's not really jumping off the page to me as having, like, any sort of super duper clear, oh my god, amazing note, but as far as, like, day in and day out, kind of, boy, that's just a solid red wine without really anything terribly flawed about it. This is, like, checking the boxes. Like, I'm a little, I'm going in for number two here. I'm going to guess that it's on the cheaper end. It does have still a bit of softness to it. I know that we're in between the range of about $7 or so to $20, but I'm going to guess this one's probably under $10. This feels like just some sort of red blend to me. Like, not really a particular varietal. Let's give it a, let's take a look. Yeah, great. Nice. Excellent. That's great news. Okay. This is pretty good. This is a pretty decent red blend. And for $11, ah, man, I was going to give this a strong C. It's a deal. Awesome. Let's move on. All right, let's give this a smell-o-lusky. Oh, this actually smells like fine wine. This has some really interesting kind of, like, barnyard funk going on. Like, a complexity that can be really desirable in fine wine. It has, like, a heaviness, but somehow an approachability. Like, this is inviting me. Like, this is, this smells good. This is pretty good. It's a little tough to drink in a way, but when you get past that initial rush of like, oh boy, this wine is a little cheap and a little rough around the edges, it has something to offer on the other side of that journey, that chasm, that gap. Because, like, you got to cross a threshold. You can't, this isn't a wine that's just like, here you go. Here's the good part. It kind of makes you work for it. I like it. Like, I like this wine, but I don't like that it's making me work for it so much. That isn't the best. Yeah. Okay. And so before I give the rating, I just wanted to say one quick thing. I don't know if y'all have ever wondered, like, what I do with all these wines. What does a person do with 20 wines? Well, what I do is I actually don't really open them. I use a Coravin. And so the wine is preserved. And what I've started to do is actually give the wine away to my audience. So these are effectively unopened bottles. Just a needle was pierced through the cork to extract some wine. And so if you're interested in doing this at home and being a part of something like this, just head to WineGuideDustin.com, and you can sign up for my newsletter. And that's where I do all these giveaways. So just send an email and ask your people to sign up for the giveaway. There's no spam or something like that. I do wine reviews, all that kind of fun stuff. So if you're interested, WineGuideDustin.com, or maybe it goes this way, WineGuideDustin.com. So I think you might enjoy it. Richard, will you enjoy it? Yes. And also I send hot pics all the time. Me. Genuinely. It's basically my OnlyFans. They threw me off OnlyFans. I was just a little too much for OnlyFans. Anyway, this wine, oh man, I hate to say that it's only a solid C. I really, I want to give it a strong C, but it's just a little too bracing. It's a little bit too much. I would expect to pay between $10 and $12 for wine in this quality. So let's see what it is. Oh, I'm deeply surprised. It's a Pinot Noir. Wow. This is an entirely unexpected expression of Pinot Noir. I like it though. I just think that a lot of people who are into Pinot Noir aren't really going to like it. So, you know, you're horny for a Bordeaux, buy this Pinot. On the Costco journey, we continue. This actually, I know off camera, we were talking about some of the wines have a feces smell. Honestly, it smells like red wine and like, I, I'm really, I'm not trying to be graphic or lewd or anything. It truly just has like a little bit of fart smell. Like it just has a little, like a little bit of farts. It's not coming across as a flaw. If I'm honest, it's kind of adding some complexity. That's kind of refreshing. Oh, okay. Let's give it a taste. I'm sure I'll love it. Okay. I have good news to report. That particular thing we discussed earlier seems to be relegated only to the smell department. It isn't coming through on the taste side. The unfortunate thing is this honestly doesn't have much going on taste-wise. You know, the most interesting thing about this wine happened right up front. After that, it honestly just kind of falls apart. There's really nothing to it. It's really soft, but somehow it kind of still hurts my palate a little bit. It's somehow that weird combination of too soft and yet too harsh. This is pretty boring, honestly. So I would say because of that very interesting thing we talked about up front, this is a weak C. I think you should pay no more than $10 for a wine of this quality. So let's find out what we were dealing with here. Oh, man. This is a little disappointing. I was excited about this one. Wow. Okay. The Gran Reserva from Ribera del Duero. Yeah. Okay. Well, these Spanish wines are 100% Tempranillo, which is a particularly robust type of grape. And, you know, they don't oak. It's, you know, the use of oak is like a very important concept in winemaking. Whenever you use oak, it really imparts a certain type of character and complexity. And the neighbors to Ribera del Duero in Rioja, they use oak a lot more than these folks do. And this tastes like it needs some oak. Like it just needs something. It's just kind of somehow both flabby and too tannic. And yeah, I don't know. It's fine. I see. And it costs $14. So it's inherently not a deal. All right, let's move on. Mas vino, por favor. Mas vino, por favor. It's a time for me and vino. We also ran out of glasses. Sorry, this one's a little wet. So. Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay. This smells like absolutely nothing. Like a whole bunch of nothing. Like couldn't find a word to describe it besides nothing. Yeah. This is a profoundly uninteresting smell. It smells like absolutely nothing. I feel like we got off on a wrong foot with this wine, with all that nothing talk. This wine is actually pretty good. This is fine wine. It doesn't have anything going on the nose, which you're going to have to get a couple of points deducted for that. But this wine is really complex. It has like a delicate pepperiness to it. It's kind of buzzing my mouth. Like in a way, like I kind of feel like my jaws become a little slack jaws. These are accolades. I know it doesn't sound like it yet, but this is what you're looking for in fine wine. There's a seduction in fine wine that is kind of like begging you. It's alluring to you. And this has that. It has some flaws. It's a little bit rough in a lot of ways. I mean, it's kind of fighting you as you're drinking it. But with the lack of any smell and all that kind of stuff, you do got to lose some points. So I'd give this a weak B and I'd expect to pay between 15 to $20 for a wine of this quality. So let's check it out. Look at that baby blue. This was one of the ones that I was most excited to try because if you just were to kind of look at the words of it, like this is a one, they call it signature series, you know, so there's clearly some feeling at Kirkland signature at Costco that there's something here, but this is a red blend wine from the Columbian Valley in Washington. I think Washington has some of the most interesting Bordeaux blend type wines in the United States. Like truly, I think it goes toe to toe with California any day of the week. And they typically are about half the price for the quality. This is good. I'd recommend this one, although it is appropriately priced. I just want to say it's not exactly living up to the Kirkland signature grand value of being an absolute barn burner in terms of performance. So anyway, it's really good. All right, next one. It smells actually very sweet. It smells almost cloying in a way that it's coming across a little bit as a flaw. This isn't very good. The only word I can think of while tasting that wine was the vacuum of space. Like that was the concept that came to mind. It is a vacuum of somehow nothingness. And the only thing that is there is the texture of hurting my mouth. For a wine that smelled sweet almost to the point of being a flaw at the beginning to then turning into something that is completely devoid of character, but also hurts to drink. This is an abysmal wine. I can't give it an F. An F is reserved for things that somehow have escaped the concept of wine and they're into a whole different universal reality. All right, let's take a look. What is it? Oh no, this was one of the most expensive ones. This is a Barolo. Barolos are the most prestigious wines from Italy. Of all of the wines, even, you know, wines from Tuscany. This is from the northern region of Italy called Piedmont. It's in the northwest region and it's made 100% from the grapes of Nebbiolo. This has no redeeming qualities. I would have guessed that it was a $3 wine. I'm a little disappointed right now. I'm disappointed, Costello. Do better. All right, let's give this thing a whiff of Rahooty. Oh yeah, this is very, very lovely. It is just a little bit of like brioche-y, bread-in-the-oven, citrus-y, limestone-like. This is very elegant, very classy. Grapefruit. This is a lovely wine to smell. Yeah, this is nice. Okay, I'm very excited. I have a feeling I know what this is. I think it's what Poppy loves. Champagne. It's so fun, effervescent, tasty, delicious. This wine is really, really lovely. It's refreshing. It's just enjoyable. It's pleasurable. The bubbles are reasonably small. It's just like a nice change of pace. After drinking a lot of these wines, this wine is really jumping out as being of fine wine. This is a wine that is embodying the character of fine wines. It tastes like it came from a place, and that place, in my mind, is likely the Champagne region of France. This isn't the best Champagne I've ever had by any stretch of the imagination, but it's really, really tasty wine, and it's not the most expressive. I mean, if you were to go and pick up any of those big name Champagne houses, like the Moet's and the Veuve Clicquot's, the ones you see at the supermarket pretty often for 50, 60 bucks, those are a little better, but this is really, really good, especially for the price. All right, before I give it a rating, I did just want to talk about one quick thing. My wife is the most incredible woman in the world. She actually wrote a children's book, and I just wanted to ask if anyone out there, if this video has been helpful for you, that you might consider checking out her children's book. She got a professional illustrator. It's about children teaching about good nutrition, so she saw that there was this gap in the market. There weren't any children's books about nutrition, and so it's beautifully illustrated. It's an awesome gift. It's really pretty. It's an awesome gift. There's also all these recipes in the end so that you can make with your kiddos, or it's a great gift, all that kind of stuff. The link is down in the description. It would mean the world if you could check it out. Thank you so much. With that being said, this wine is a B. This is a really, really successful wine, and Bs, I would expect to pay between $20 and $30 for a wine of this quality. So let's take a look. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, Richard, I think I am just going to make a champagne YouTube channel. I just don't. Why were we drinking all that other stuff? Why did we need to do that to ourselves? This is what we want. Isn't this what we want? This is pretty damn good for $20. I have to say. What I love about this wine is that you can do something that is otherwise a little bit, I think, sacrilegious, which is like, you can make a mimosa with this. Like, you should not buy $50 champagne and make mimosas. That's a little fucked up. I'm of that ilk that that's a little not apropos, but for $20 a bottle, you can make mimosas. So I think that's cool. Make the best mimosas of your life. I love champagne. I love it. All right. Thank you so, so much for watching. By the way, if you haven't subscribed yet, now is the best time to do so. If you like this video, click like, if you want to support the channel, please check out the links below to purchase the wines from the video. It honestly helps more than, you know, and if you found this video interesting and check out this one where I blind tasted wines from Costco and Trader Joe's to find out which one is best. See you there.