Trader Joe’s Stocks Up on Affordable Napa Cabs, Pumpkin Products for Fall

In Episode 39 of Trader Joe’s podcast titled, A Trader Joe’s Shopping List of Fabulous Fall Finds, marketing team members Tara Miller and Matt Sloan dish on the latest products coming in-store, as well as seasonal favorites making a return appearance.

“All told, it looks like we have something approaching 75 pumpkin products for this year,” said Sloan, adding, “they’re all available for a short window of time.”

New fall products at Trader Joe’s include Pumpkin Spice Espresso Beans, which come in a 2.5-ounce bag and are meant for snacking; a dairy-free Pumpkin Oat Beverage; and Mini Maple Walnut Biscotti. Also new for fall at Trader Joe’s is an addition to the Monrovia, Calif.-based grocer’s small lot coffee program called, Indonesia Bali Kintamani. The coffee comes from an Indonesian village on the island of Bali. “This one is just a nice, solid rich cup of coffee,” said Sloan.

Seasonal products making a comeback include Spiced Pumpkin Madeleine Cookies; Maple Espresso Black Tea Blend; Pumpkin Alfredo sauce; Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese Bites; Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Bites (found in the freezer case); and Trader Joe’s Thanksgiving Pie Chocolate Truffles from Belgium.

In produce, Trader Joe’s is bringing back its Holiday Vegetable Hash, which features diced winter vegetables, including sweet potatoes and butternut squash with parsley, sage and rosemary; as well as its Harvest Apple Salad Kit; Rainbow Pears—a mix of three different types of the fruit and grown in Washington and Oregon; Cara Cara Navel Oranges; and “a huge selection of pumpkins” sourced from local farms, whenever possible, says Trader Joe’s.

Related:What Trader Joe’s Shoppers Want Most

And as hard seltzers continue to resonate with consumers, Trader Joe’s has partnered with the Shell House brand of spiked seltzers to introduce a Pumpkin Spice Seltzer Water with 5% alcohol and 100 calories per can.

But the juiciest news of Trader Joe’s most recent podcast, was the soon-to-be-released Trader Joe’s 2020 Platinum Reserve Napa Cabernet Sauvignon for $14.99 a bottle, everywhere the retailer sells wine.

“It’s really delicious. We have just about 10,000 cases, which sounds like a massive amount of wine, really. But it’s not. It’s going to go quickly when this comes out,” said Sloan of the private label 2020 vintage.

How was Trader Joe’s able to score 10,000 cases of a higher-end wine at such an affordable price? “Last year was a challenging year for wine sales, for a lot of reasons having to do with hospitality businesses. A lot of wineries need to move product out so that they can bring in this year’s harvest and make this year’s wine,” explained Miller, who added that Trader Joe’s is able to pay the wineries in cash.

Adding to the intrigue, Miller went on to say of the Napa Cab: “And it does come from a winery that is known for extremely expensive bottles of wine—like in the hundreds of dollars range. [But] we can’t tell you who that winemaker is.”

“We’re so confident in the product that we’re willing to take the risk to sell it without that famous name we cannot reveal,” added Sloan.