The Wine Fairy

I made a promise back in April to review all 13 of the wines I got in a mixed Italian case from the Wall Street Journal’s wine club.

Lucky me! I’ll be grabbing these bottles one by one, finding something in my pantry or freezer to pair with them, and giving you my honest thoughts on the contents.

This evening we are tasting a wine with some words on it that I don’t recognize: The Visionario Bianco Trevenezie.

What is a Bianco Trevenezie? Well, I guess the answer depends on whether you’re looking to drink it or study it. (Both, I guess?)

Wine drinker version: These are table wines from Northern Italy that are fruity and light in style. They are usually–though not exclusively–dry. They’re affordable and they pair well with a wide range of foods.

Wine student version (deep breath): Trevenezie is a broad IGP that encompasses three sub-regions near the cities of Venice and Verona. Grapes can be sourced from any and all of these areas: Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as the entire province of Trento in Trentino-Alto Adige.

Many different white grapes are planted here, including native and international varieties. The IGP was renamed from IGP delle Venezie when Delle Venezie was promoted to a DOC in 2017 in order to protect and elevate Pinot Grigio in the region. The geographical borders of Trevenezie and Delle Venezie are the same and some overlap in styles is theoretically possible. But in practice, almost all Delle Venezie is varietally labeled Pinot Grigio and most Trevenezie is a blend of white grapes other than Pinot Grigio.

Non-varietally labeled whites (called Bianco Trevenezie) can be blends of any proportion of approved grapes from the respective production areas. There are no minimum aging requirements and very few other restrictions in Trevenezie IGP. This gives the winemaker a lot of creative options, and the wine can vary between producers and vintages depending on plantings and yields.

If that last sentence reads like “garbage disposal for grapes”….well, like I said, Visionario is a wine club selection. These are often surplus wines and are not generally known for their quality or prestige.

However! In this household, we are not wine snobs. We drink Italian wines at all price points, and I tasted this wine and found it rather pleasant. So there.

The producer is Allesandro Gallici, most closely associated with a popular Prosecco that’s distributed through wine clubs. Visionario is his project of blending grape varieties from different sites across northeastern Italy to create a truly unconventional wine.

Very delicate floral elderflower and honeysuckle are the leading aromas. There’s citrus intertwined with custard in a flavor that reminds me of lemon pastry cream. (Wife: “Twinkie filling.”) Ripe Bartlett pear and apple on the palate, along with lunchbox orange. It’s medium-bodied with a slight sweetness, leaning toward off dry. It’s not very acidic. I taste grassiness, a bit of unripe pineapple. Faint minerality, like licking your lips in the shower when you have hard water. In short, WTF is this wine?

The varietal composition of this rather un-placeable wine is not listed on the label. Thank Bacchus that Vivino freakin’ exists. Turns out, it’s a blend across four different native and international grapes.

In this Trevenezie we have: Tocai Friulano (which is not related to Tokai and is now called Sauvignonasse in most places because Hungary fussed at Italy about the name), Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and late-harvested Gewürztraminer.

It is an unusual mix. I do not feel disappointment about the presence of any of those varieties, but I’m not sure they add up to more than the sum of their parts in this blend.

I’ll float a metaphor here: It’s like when you invite all the friends you know from different places to the same occasion and hope they’ll hit it off and then they do–but only sort of, and only because they’re all socially competent adults who know how to talk to strangers. Nobody wants to speak out of turn or come off as too opinionated, and so not a lot of interesting things get talked about at that party.

Or perhaps it’s like a child’s flipbook image: An amusing creation with the head of a Gewürtztraminer, the torso of a Chardonnay, and the short, skinny tail of a Sauvignon Blanc.

The wine starts out rather vexing, then settles into an agreeable mood. Drink it, don’t think it.

After 45 minutes or so of being open at room temperature, the apple-y Chardonnay flavors become much more dominant. A gentle, medium-bodied white with some fresh floral and herbaceous notes–what’s not to like?

The wine’s light sweetness suggested corn and shellfish to my hungry belly. I served it with a late-night meal of cornmeal battered shrimp (these are from H-E-B) and a summer veggie succotash with fresh basil.

Bottle: Visionario Bianco Trevenezie (2023)

Variety: Tocai Friulano (Sauvignonasse), Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer (proprietary blend)

ABV: 11%

Suggested retail: $14.99

My rating: 7 (out of 10)

Further reading:

Italian Wine Central, IGP Trevenezie Styles and Production Rules

Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.