Are these the kinds of wines i will find ar grocery stores, sams clubs, costco, etc?
Different requirement. If the wine is at grocery stores in the midwest, it’s not likely to be one of the wines mentioned. The wines that are going to appear in those kinds of stores are going to have to be made in large volume and they’ll have to be pretty standardized. That pretty much precludes them from being “diamonds”, although they can certainly be OK to drink. They’ll be more like glass crystal.
Estancia for example, is owned by Constellation Brands, which I believe is the biggest wine and spirits company in the world. They also own things like Ravenswood, Toasted Head, Mt. Veeder, Clos du Bois, Wild Horse, Simi, Blackstone, and they recently acquired Robert Mondavi. That’s in rough order of what I’d drink - you may feel otherwise. They also own Corona and a number of beers and vodkas and spirits. Chains like dealing with them because they can get everything they need from one source and have only one delivery and one bill. Take a look at your local grocery store and I’ll bet you see all of those brands.
Gallo owns even more. Barefoot Cellars, for example, is everywhere. From Argentina they own Don Miguel Gascon and Alamos, from Australia Clarendon Hills, from Spain Las Rocas and Martĩn Cõdax, and from the US, too many to list but they include Rancho Zabaco, Dancing Bull, MacMurray Ranch, William Hill and Apothic, which seems to be the current fave in some quarters.
Doesn’t mean all of those wines are no good. I would drink those if someone poured them and I even have some Clarendon Hills.
There are a handful of companies that own enough brands to supply all the grocery stores and other big chains and that’s what they do. For my money, the one that’s consistently the best is Chateau St Michelle, which, in addition to their Washington wines, also owns Conn Creek, Stag’s Leap and Villa Mt. Eden in CA. So if you’re talking about grocery store wines that people would drink, that would be my nomination.
And again, the scores are irrelevant. Las Rocas used to get 91 points when Eric Solomon owned it. Now that Gallo owns it, I don’t know, but they’re likely to be more consistent in quality. I had a bottle the other day, just to try it since I’d not had it in a while. Pretty good for the price IMO. A little short, but for like $10, nothing to complain about.