Excellent news for Target enthusiasts who also love a nice glass of wine: On March 3, Target will be launching a new wine collection. Appropriately called The Collection, it adds yet another label to the brand’s growing wine portfolio — and with bottles that are both reasonable priced and gorgeous to look at, The Collection will no doubt be a hit with Target’s already devoted millennial shoppers.
The Collection is the product of a family farmed winery that’s been growing grapes since 1924, with a current emphasis on sustainable and environmentally sensitive farming practices and techniques. The wines are “perfectly balanced,” according to a press release provided to Bustle, and “[combine] the very best of carefully harvested grapes, bringing together a delicate compilation of pure winemaking artistry.” They’ll retail for $9.99 per bottle.
The Collection will start with five varieties: Two reds, two whites, and — naturally — a rosé. (The rosé-all-day life philosophy is still going strong in this 2019, the Year of Our Wine.) The Cabernet Sauvignon is described as “dark and dense,” with notes of black cherry and spices, while the slightly lighter Red Blend boasts a profile of mocha, caramel, blackberry, and dark chocolate. Meanwhile, the Chardonnay imparts an aroma of freshly baked, buttered biscuits (it is chardonnay, after all; they’re not always buttery, but many of them are) and a roasted marshmallow flavor; and in contrast, the Pinot Grigio is crisp and medium-bodied, with notes of honeysuckle, melon, white peach, and nectarine. Lastly, the Rosé has a flowery start — think white blossoms and red roses — and finishes up with hints of strawberry and watermelon.
At about $10 per bottle, The Collection’s wines are a step up from Target’s other in-house wine labels, California Roots and Wine Cube. California Roots launched in 2017 with five varieties — a Chardonnay, a Pinot Grigio, a Moscato, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a red blend — and expanded in 2018 to include a rosé; all of the bottles are $5 a pop. Wine Cube, meanwhile, has been around for around 15 years (in 2013, Target celebrated Wine Cube’s 10th birthday), but got a revamp last spring. With 12 different varieties ranging from a Malbec to a Pink Moscato, the Cubes cost $18 each — which, with each box having a volume equal to four standard, 750ml bottles, comes out to $4.50 per bottle.
Although both lines have their devotees, general consensus is that the wines are easy drinking wines, rather than the more complex types that make for a slightly more interesting sipping experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; there’s something to be said for affordability, of course, and sometimes, you just want something that’s made for an afternoon at the pool. Given the slightly higher price point of The Collection, I’ll be curious to find out whether that means the wines themselves have been scaled up in terms of complexity from where California Roots and Wine Cube sit.
For a millennial audience, though, the price is still right. While the Silicon Valley Bank’s State of the Wine Industry report from January lamented a supposed decline in millennial wine drinkers, the truth of the matter isn’t that we’re “killing the wine industry” — we’re just not becoming major drinkers of premium wine, or wine that’s more than $10 a bottle. The report noted that millennials do “hold slightly higher consumption in the $8 – $11 bottle price points and are interested in wine”; we’re just not shelling out for more expensive wine. I'm just hazarding a guess here, but that's probably due to the fact that we have less economic stability and disposable income than older generations did when they were our age (which, it bears repeating, is not our fault), right? Right.
A $10 bottle of wine from The Collection? That’s right in the sweet spot for millennial drinkers — and it’s both easily accessible (Target currently has 1,850 stores in the United States) and pretty to look at, to boot. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.
The Collection isn’t all Target has up its boozy sleeve this spring, either. Also coming to the company’s adult beverage lineup on March 3 are a new variety of California Roots — a Sauvignon Blanc — as well as Wine Cube Sparkling Cans and a canned spiked and sparkling beverage by Crook & Marker. Looks like picnic season is getting off to an excellent start!
