Discover Casone Toscana Vermentino 2023 – The $7.99 Trader Joe's Italian Coastal Gem!

What if you could enjoy a taste of Tuscany without leaving your couch—and for under $8? Join Tomei and Dave from CheapWineFindercom as we explore the 2023 Cassoni Toscana Vermentino, a remarkable white wine that captures the essence of Italy's coastal vineyards. Priced affordably at Trader Joe's, this wine is a refreshing option for those eager to explore beyond the familiar labels of California or Oregon. With its slight salinity and intriguing mix of unsweetened pineapple juice, tart apple, and subtle stone fruit, this Vermentino invites you to reimagine what a value-priced wine can offer. 

We dive into the nuances that set Italian wines apart from their American counterparts, offering listeners a chance to broaden their palate without breaking the bank. This episode uncovers the history and tradition behind Italy's IGP designation, designed to provide winemakers with more freedom while ensuring quality. Whether you're a seasoned wine enthusiast or curious newcomer, Tomei and Dave discuss why the Cassoni Toscana Vermentino is a must-try, offering both familiar and exotic flavors that make every sip a mini adventure. Join us to find out why this coastal-influenced wine deserves a spot in your rotation.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, it's Tomei and Dave CheapWineFindercom. How you doing? Welcome. We got another wine review for a wine we wrote up on the CheapWineFindercom website. We've been writing reviews there for a long, long time and nowadays, in the last few years, we've been doing a companion podcast every time we write one up, so check out the one if you want to read about a lot of different wines. We do a lot of the well, we do value price, usually under 20 bucks, and today we've got a 799 wine from Trader Joe's. It's the Cassoni Toscana Vermentino 2023.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Vermentino is the white wine of Tuscany, sangiovese is the red wine and this has a seashell on the label because this is from coastal vineyards and it actually does have this salinity to the texture of the wine. Vermentino is reminiscent of Sauvignon Blanc, but with the flavors in different areas. It's you know it has that and it has this, but all in a different order. If you can get behind that, I'm going to take a sip right now and we're going to talk about it. Ah, it's spicy on the nose, but it's the soft spice on the nose. Anytime you can get an $8 white wine from Tuscany, it's a bargain. You got to try it.

Speaker 1: 1:38

You know it's these old wine places, these European places are not wrong. The winery here has been around for 120 years. These growing regions, the Romans picked them out. In some of these places, the Greeks before them chose that because grapes grow in certain places, there are certain places where you should grow them, certain places you shouldn't, and this has all been staked out for a couple thousand years. So what do we got here? We got a wine that's got.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Let's take a sip again. It's kind of viscous, just slightly viscous on the palate, spicy on the nose it has like it has a bit of unsweetened pineapple juice, a little bit of tart apple Stone fruit, just a little bit. To round things off, tropical fruit Interesting. Tropical fruit Interesting, but mild spice Just adds a little flavor, kind of like on food, where the chef just added just a little something, something and you taste it and you go, what is that? And it's pretty good.

Speaker 1: 3:04

This is a nice wine, is, um, like I said, if you, if you're a fan of san giovanni, or if you just like white wine and you want to try something that maybe you haven't tried before and vermentino is definitely a wine you should try before and it's definitely a wine that should be on your uh, on your rotation of sorts. You know one thing about these italian wines that are different than American wines you go to the supermarket or whatever and you really don't know what brands to buy, where you have old, familiar brands from the California and the Washington and Oregon wines. So it's a little bit more of a risk, but at Trader Joe's for eight bucks it's not really a risk at all. I'll take another sip. When I first tasted it it was like, hmm, do I like this? And after a couple of sips it's like I can't stop sipping. It's eight bucks well spent. Yeah, it's got some interesting flavors. It's got some things I can't quite put my finger on, but then it's got the familiar flavors too. You can get that, the coastal influence. I don't always get the coastal influence from California, which has most of the vineyards are within certain distance of the coast Pacific Ocean and I don't always get the saltiness and a lot of things you get from the more European ones. But here you do, here you kind of get a little taste of location.

Speaker 1: 4:36

This is an IGP wine. They actually Italy, invented IGP because of Sangiovese wines, which is Chianti. The producers and this is about 20, 30 years ago started to get a little restless because they had strict rules and regulations for their DOC DOCG wines and they started blending their Sangiovese with Cabernet Sauvignon, merlot, syrah you know French grapes and they were a huge hit. The problem is, since they didn't comply with the DOC DOCG rules, you had to sell it as table wine, which is the bottom, the level of European wine. There is no such thing as levels in the US. Everything's one category, you choose what it is. So they had to come up with IGP just for that, and then everything else has gone into it. So for some reason, this doesn't conform with all the rules and regulations of Tuscany, which is fine. It's $8 wine. If they have to do something a little bit different, or it's a little bit outside the standard DOC DOCGU growing area, or whatever it is, or whatever the reason is, it's fine with me. Igp is legit and this is a very nice wine for $7.99.

Speaker 1: 6:02

It's fairly new. Uh, it came with a red wine which I haven't tried yet, but uh, greater joe's, uh tell me. Uh, people tell me it was. It's worth drinking. That's a. That's another one under ten dollar wine we got to check out. Yeah, very interesting change of pace. If you're tired of all you've been drinking, have this one. It'll, um, it'll have your palate perk up. That's it for me. Domain davecheapwinefightercom. Like us, we like your podcast. Push, push the button, it helps, and I've got a. I think I've got a Chardonnay coming up. So, adios, stay warm and I'll talk to you in a couple days. Adios, bye-bye, keep it cheap.