Domaine Laurier and Hacienda Brut Sparkling Wine

Just because the New Year’s holiday is over is no reason to stop drinking sparkling wine.  And so, here are a couple more bubblies worth checking out.

Both of these wines come from the Bronco Wine Company.  You won’t see that name on the labels anywhere, but Bronco owns both of these brands, as well as numerous other “value” wine brands.  Bronco is probably best known as the company that produces the Charles Shaw brand (aka “Two-buck Chuck”) sold at Trader Joe’s.  While these wines are quite as cheap as two-buck, they are still quite reasonably priced, particularly for bubbly.

There is one thing you might not like about these wines.  If you’ve ever paid $30 or more for a bottle of bubbly, you may feel foolish after tasting one of these.

Hacienda Brut

The nose is a little on the tight side, but shows some yeast, straw and apple aromas.  The palate has a creamy and bubbly mouth feel and offers apple, pear, lime and mineral flavors.  It has a very harmonious balance of texture, fruit, acid and mineral.  I honestly didn’t expect this wine to be this good, but I’m glad that it is.

Wine: Hacienda Brut
Variety: White Blend
Vintage: N/V
Alcohol: 12%
Rating: 87
Price: $12.99

Find Hacienda Brut with Snooth

Domaine Laurier Brut

Interestingly, we reviewed this wine two years ago and didn’t have a good impression of it at the time.  That just goes to show that even though this wine is labeled as a non-vintage wine, it will still show differently from one year to the next.

This wine has smoky yeast and apple aromas.  A wine like this would not see any oak, so I would think that the smoke is just an expression of the yeast.  The palate has tart, green apple, lime and straw flavors with plenty of bubble and a creamy texture.  A salty mineral note hits the midpalate and continues into the finish, where the green apple also lingers. For the price of this bubbly, I have zero complaints.

Wine: Domaine Laurier Brut
Variety: White Blend
Vintage: N/V
Alcohol: 11.5%
Rating: 87
Price: $12.99

Find Domaine Laurier Brut with Snooth

Disclosure: These wines were received as a sample.