I live in Maryland, and the Aldi’s here (as well as convenience stores, etc) cannot sell beer and wine. But I was in an Aldi’s in WV last Sunday, and had to try a few bottles of their wine. They’re no brands I’ve ever heard of (well, like almost everything else at that store), but I paid less for each bottle of wine than I’d pay for a single glass of the house wine at any local restaurant.
I haven’t tried any of them yet, but I might try one this afternoon.
So, have you ever bought the wines at Aldi? How was your experience?
Well, I’m guessing an expert wouldn’t stoop so low as to buy wine at Aldi! Frankly, I’m more of a beer snob than wine snob.
jjimm, I’ll keep that review in mind as I try them. Of course, you also have to balance the level of “not disgustingness” against the level of incredible cheapness. As in, yeah, this here Riesling isn’t as good as the $25.00 bottle I got at the liquor store, but then again, it was only $5.00; so is the liquor store Riesling five times better?"
Y’know, you can get ulcers if you hold in your true feelings. Why risk your health? How do you really feel about Riesling?
Tapioca Dextrin, thanks for your input. If I ever make it to France, I’ll be sure to duck into the nearest Aldi for good wine bargains!
Seriously, though, I tried one of the wines last night at dinner time (I usually drink one glass of wine while I’m cooking dinner, then re-fill the glass to enjoy with my dinner), and it wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t great, but hey, it was $3.99. It was at least $10.00 worth of pretty good. Bargain.
I once had a passable Sauvignon Blanc from Lidl, too.
On another subject I also tried Lidl beer. Bringing it in from the car, I dropped and smashed a bottle on my living room floor. The goo that resulted would substitute for Araldite and took me a week to clear up. And the smell lingered for months afterwards. It was disgusting.
I love Riesling. It’s my favorite. (Sweet German ones, that is.)
I went into Aldi once, but their general selection of anything was so incredibly poor that I never saw the point in going back unless the only thing I needed was one of the five things they sold. Maybe I’ll go look at the wine.
In Dutch Consumers tests, Aldi products keep coming up above average in blind taste tests. Often above far, far more expensive brands. But only in blind tests. The idea: “it’s Aldi, so it is cheap and can’t be much” tends to blind the tastebuds, I have noticed. It pays to do some tests to convince both yourself and your housemates. I did that with Aldi olive oil, and it was great fun. My fiance swore he only liked expensive olive oil brand X. (He’s a bit of an olive oil snob). It was only when I showed him, again and again, that if he tasted blindly, he kept thinking X was Aldi and Aldi was X, that he got convinced.
So yeah, Aldi wines are okay (when you look at price/quality) to surprisingly good. They skrimp on selection, and on presentation, not on quality.
And both Lidl beer and Aldi beer have a reputation of “bum beer” in that they contain the most alcohol in the biggest can for the smallest buck. That, along with Aldi port wine, makes them the preferred brand of drink for drunks. Now I wonder: is that actually good PR, or not?
Are we talking in the States?? I’ve never heard of Aldi or Lidl till I came here to Berlin and just assumed these were German stores. Incidentally, I have both stores on my block, and there you can get quite good wine for about 3 eu. (approx. $4.50) a bottle.
I’m in Ohio and there is an Aldi near me. It’s a grocery store that has large quantities of maybe 10 different food items, presumably at a good price. I wouldn’t know because none of the 10 things they offered was something I needed so I just left.
Yes, Aldi has stores in the States (I don’t know if they’re in ALL the states, but they’re in some of them). They’ve moved their quality, selection, and prices slightly upward in the last 5 years or so. Mine now stocks things like frozen lobster tails, whole grain pasta and a few organic items. I got a great pair of women’s running shoes there yesterday for $20, and up until last summer, got my son steel toed workboots there every year for about the same. (His foot is too big for their sizes now - 14! That kid’s feet better stop growing soon!) They’ve got more namebrand stuff than they used to, as well, although it’s all on “special deals”, which means you never know if it will be there next time you shop.
What my store doesn’t carry yet is the wine and beer, which I keep hoping for. So I still have to make a special trip to Trader Joe’s for 2 Buck Chuck (which is actually $3 around here.)
Yeah, this isn’t going to do Opal any good, since she’s vegetarian, but I found some delightful seafood kabobs on my last Aldi run. The box contains six skewers, each containing a nice big bite of lobster tail, plus three shrimp and three scallops; they are pre-seasoned, but being a Marylander, I still sprinkled a little Old Bay on them before cooking, then squeezed a little lemon juice on them.
Oh, also, you can check Aldi.com for a store locater that tells you whether one of the stores near you carry beer/wine.
I’ve never heard of Lidl. They’re either just in Europe, or at least not near here.
The one by me is definitely creepy. It’s so bleak and weird, and you have to go all the way through the store once you enter, because you can’t go back out the “in” door and you can’t get to the “out” door without going through the whole store–all the way to the back and then to the front–AND going through a checkout line to reach the exit. I didn’t buy anything and I actually had to get a guy with a key to let me through one of the closed checkout lanes (they have a locking bar across them). It was way creepy.
