We were wandering through our local wine and spirits shop just before the Thanksgiving holiday, looking for a few wines to bring to a friend’s house for dinner, when we ran across one of those small wine tastings that pop up from time to time. This time they had a Prosecco, a Pinot Noir, a red blend and a Pinot Grigio from the Chloe Wine Company. We had never tried these before, so it was the perfect time to wade in and give them a go. All were line priced at under $15. All were surprisingly good, especially at that price point.
Here is a bit of background from their website, www.chloewinecollection.com:
“Winemaker Georgetta Dane’s path to creating the timeless Chloe Wine Collection began half way around the world. Born and raised in Romania, Georgetta earned a master’s degree in food science at Galati University. In 1998, her husband applied for a U.S. visa on a whim, and eight months later – on the day of their daughter’s baptism – the family received green cards. Despite having careers, a newborn and a home under construction, Georgetta and her husband risked all and emigrated to the U.S.
They landed in Monterey, Calif., where Georgetta worked with Kendall Jackson as a lab technician. As her English improved, she showcased her enological knowledge and quickly advanced. In 2004, she joined The Wine Group and three years later took the helm of her own brand.
Today, Georgetta is the winemaker for the Chloe Wine Collection, where she marries her old world European roots with contemporary American life to craft wines fit for sophisticated yet modern wine lovers. Based in Northern California, Georgetta sources grapes from prized vineyards across the world’s preeminent growing regions to craft ultra-premium, alluring wines with elegant intensity. She appreciates coaxing the fullest expression out of the grapes in each of Chloe’s wines – Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir and Red No. 249 – to showcase the high-quality fruit and communicate their origins. This dedication to the grapes and winemaking process allows for each of Chloe’s wines to blossom into a well-balanced yet luxurious product that delivers a distinctive experience.
Georgetta is especially passionate about creating wines that enable sophisticated consumers to create timeless memories during special occasions and capture beautiful moments in the every day.”
We can confidently say Georgetta is right on target with her goals. We ended up buying the 2104 Pinot Grigio, 2014 Pinot Noir and 2013 Red Blend 249.
The Pinot Grigio is clean and crisp, but has some structure and complexity that you would expect from a higher priced version. The 
grapes are from the Valdadige D.O.C. in Italy, located just north of Verona and extending into the mountain valleys. It reminds you of higher end wines from the surounding region. This is very good, and we recommend it.
The Pinot Noir is fruity, but has depth as well, brings complex notes of spice and tobacco, and is unusually good for something made from this grape for under $20. You can find good Pinot Gris, Cabernet and Merlot under $20. 
You have to look but they are out there. With Pinot Noir is gets much harder. Under $15 there are not many good ones at all. Drinkable yes, good – not so much. Grapes here come from both Monterey County and the Russian River Valley in Sonoma, and this is very good Pinot Noir for under $15. It’s actually just very good pinot Noir period. We highly recommend this.
The 2013 Red Blend 249 has a little bit of everything. It’s named after the 249 lots of wine Georgetta tasted to figure out where she wanted to go with this. There is great fruit (all from the North Coast of California by the way), with lots of other things going on to provide complexity. It has noticeable but approachable tannins. It is very long. It really drinks well above its 
price point, as all of these do. We also highly recommend this.
While we had not tried any wines from Chloe before this, we certainly will be drinking more in the future. These are all case buy values, and all would make excellent house wines. We’re going back for more.
Try some wines from Chloe and enjoy some great value juice.
To Georgetta all we can say is….. well done!
A votre santé!
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