Go Italian! New Spotlight On 3 More Incredibly Delicious Trader Joe's Wines!

There is just no way I can stop talking about Trader Joe’s wines!

Add in Italy and I can talk for days!

The Value is insane!!

The most expensive one of the 3 is $8.49!

Unbelievable!

Let’s put a spotlight on these delicious red wines one at a time!

BUT FIRST, let’s learn stuff so this post is useful for all:

(If you just came to this post for the 3 wines, skip ahead! Can’t hurt to learn wine stuff, though. Just saying.)

Want some more recommendations and generally great info, sign up here:

Italian wines, both red and white, are generally food wines. That means they are better with food. Most are high acid wines.

Many people hear acid and think, OH NO! That sounds bad. (I anticipated the UGH response. Forgive me, if I’m wrong.)

As I wrote in my post Top 10 things you need to know to have a useful wine vocabulary (Hint, hint: Click on the title if you want all the information.):

But acid in wine is the sidekick that can bring life to the party! It can add brightness and make the wine taste more refreshing. It is great balancing out the sweetness in wine. It also can make you salivate which really helps when matching with food. I often mention that Italian wines are food wines. The acid in them goes great with food. Without food you may be too aware of the acid.

More interesting stuff:

Old World wines come from Europe and they have a ton of rules and regulations about what can be grown where. There are about 355 grape types in Italy alone. EEK! That’s a lot. However, they don’t grow everywhere in Italy, and many don’t make it out of the country. Whew!

If you want even more great info about Italian wines, head up to the archive and put Italy in the search bar.

Meanwhile… back to the wines!Woo!

First up:

This is the 2021 Maraia Barbera Del Monferrato. It is an insanely delicious 100% Barbera Wine.

Read on..

Barbera is the 3rd most popular grape planted in Italy. In case you want to know, the other two are Sangiovese and Montepulciano.

You will often find Barbera listed with the area the wine is from. You may see Barbera d’Alba, Barbera d’Asti, and in this case Barbera Del Monferrato. All of them are in the Piedmont area of Italy.

Barbera usually produces a delicious fruit forward wine. It is a high acid grape (see above), but with low tannins. (If you are unsure of what that means, now would really be a good time to read that post about wine vocabulary.) Click here:

Top 10 things you need to know to have a useful wine vocabulary

Or you could move on.

Barbera is grown in many places in Italy, as well as locations in the New World (pretty much anywhere that isn’t Europe.) Do not confuse it with Barbaresco which is not a grape. It is a wine made from the Nebbiolo grape.

You cannot go wrong with this incredible wine I bought from a Trader Joe’s wine store for $8.49!!

Amazingly enough it is not exclusive to Trader Joe’s. However, it can be almost $10 more at other locations. I may like it if I bought it for more money, but I LOVE IT FOR $8.49!!!

The alcohol content is 14.5% ABV(Alcohol by volume.) However, with the fruitiness and the alcohol, everything is well balanced and delicious. If you can find it at Trader Joe’s, BUY IT!

Next up:

Let’s head to Sicily and this insanely delicious red blend!

This shockingly good wine Is a blend of 7 different red grapes varieties. That’s the reason for the number 7. If you can see the back label in the picture you will note that the 7 grapes are: 10% Nerello Mascalese (well known in Sicily), 5% Sangiovese, 23% Merlot, 2%Pinot Noir, 35% Syrah, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Frappato (also well known in Sicily.)

There are a few very interesting things about this wine. Nero d'Avola is the most well known red wine grape in Sicily. It is not included in this wine. The winemakers have chosen to highlight different grapes, and list the percentages on the label. The grapes used are slightly dried. This will give you more concentrated flavors. It does!

The most amazing thing about this wine is the price! This one is the lowest price of the three wines at $5.99. See above with Mind Blown!

This wine absolutely should be in your shopping cart.

Last, but not least…

Let’s head to Puglia!

Time to enjoy this fantastic red blend!

Cheers to this delicious Campo Rudi Appassimento Rosso Puglia IGT!

Although it is not written on the bottle, this wine is made from Sangiovese, Primitivo, Negroamaro, Nero di Troia grapes. I had to research that. Quite a difference with the other two bottles. They put it right out there.

The really interesting part is the Appassimento.

At this point you may ask, IT IS?!?

YEP!

Appassimento is when grapes are dried for months before being pressed and fermented. This really concentrates the flavors.

One of the most well known Italian wines that does this is Amarone. This wine is not an Amarone. Totally different price range. This Trader Joe’s exclusive wine costs $6.99. Most Amarones cost at least 10 times that.

If you want to know more about delicious (although pricier) wines that use dried grapes, look at my post that talks about Amarone della Valpolicella and Valpolicella Ripasso.

The 7 Sicilians wine above mentioned, “slightly dried.”

Generally, wines will brag about their strengths. If 7 Sicilians used appassimento they would probably say so. Both wines are delicious, regardless.

Throw it into your cart!

I threw all of these wines and more into my cart!!

Amazingly enough, I haven’t complained yet in this post that there is no Trader Joe’s wines near me. See the related posts below to find out more.

All 3 wines were in this cart! When I find a Trader Joe’s wine store, I stock up!! Check out about some of the other wines in my other posts.

Want more ideas what to put in your cart? Here’s another chance:

You cannot go wrong with any of these wines!

Insanely good value and beyond delicious.

So take an inexpensive trip to Italy, and…

CHEERS!!

Here are the related posts:
Click on whichever posts you want!

FUN STUFF!!

Why you should be in love with wines from Trader Joe’s

This is the the origin story, so to speak

Two More insanely good values from Trader Joe’s and who recommended them

This is my most popular Trader Joe’s post. The wines mentioned may be hard to come by, but the advice is still priceless.

Three More insanely good value Trader Joe’s wines: Red Blends Edition

All three of these wines are still available and still delicious.

Join the Incredible Hunt to find Trader Joe’s wine shops in each state

This is an amazingly useful guide for locating Trader Joe’s wine shops. If you live in California and some other lucky states , they are everywhere! For the rest of us, we need this!

Two beyond Incredible great value bottles of Trader Joe’s wine

These two wines are still as great as when I first wrote about them.

Two more Crazy Delicious Trader Joe’s Wines that are an Insane Value

These two wines are both North California Reds. If you can find them , stock up.

Latest post: Spotlight on 2 More Insanely Delicious Trader Joe's Wines! You can click on the title. OR Here. Mix it up! This is about 2 fantastic Chilean wines that are only $4.99! Crazy good.

Stay tuned…