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The Northern RegionsValle d’Aosta - Piedmont - Liguria - Lombardy - Trentino-Alto Adige - Veneto - Friuli Venezia GiuliaWith the snow-covered Italian Alps as a backdrop and protector, the northern growing area of Italian wines is, at once, both autonomous and diverse. Warmed by the reflection of the sun off mountainsides and stone-walls, the terraces and valley floors provide a nurturing home for grapevines of many varieties. Each geographic region brings its own personality to the richness of the wines themselves. The Central RegionEmilia-Romagna - Tuscany - Marches - Umbria - Latium - Abruzzi The central area of Italy, the heart of the old
Roman Empire, is home to some of the most popular Italian wines. Lambrusco,
Verdicchio and the venerable Chianti all call this part of Italy home.
Yet even here, ancient traditions have given rise to new efforts in winemaking
as they constantly strive to improve. The Southern RegionsMolise - Campania - Apulia - Basilicata - CalabriaThe five regions that make up the southern area
do not produce as much in quantity and variety of wines as are produced
in the other regions. Yet the winemaking that goes on here dates from
some of the earliest times and is considered among the most potent of
the Italian wines. Much of the area is either rugged terrain or extensively
forested; the very diversity of the geography adds to the unique quality
of the wines made here. The Island RegionsSardinia - SicilySicily and Sardinia, while part of Italy, have developed different cultures and wines, almost as if these two Mediterranean islands were independent entities. Both of them date their efforts at winemaking to distant antiquity. The result is a variety of wines with a fullness and flavour that reflect the diversity of the people and the land.
Regional names in Italy give much less of a clue to wine styles as they do, for example, in France. Bourgogne is basically about variations on the themes of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. A region like the Veneto makes light bubble whites, a whole gamut of dry red and white wines, massive port-like reds and dessert wines. The most important common denominator in all this is grape variety. Nine times out of ten "What's it made of?" is the most useful question you can ask about an unfamiliar wine and the one which best helps you link wines and flavours. Italy grows all the global village varieties and if you are going for familiar sensations offers everything from good basic drinking to top international quality in both reds and whites. The local red varieties are numerous, strong on character, and arguably the best reason for drinking Italian wine today. Native white varieties are fewer and generally less imposing, which means you may have to look harder for worthwhile bottles.
DOC and DOCG
Wines made from designated varieties, grown in defined production zones have the right to use an official DOC (denominazione di origine controllata) wine name. DOCG (the "G" stands for garantita) is a limited category reserved for wines of outstanding quality and character - in practice it is not always so. Names generally correspond to either a variety (Lambrusco is a grape) or place name (Barolo is a village). There are more DOC/Gs than grapes on a vine, but you can get by with knowledge of the two or three dozen most important ones. The problem is that a significant number of the kind of wines you would like to know about either don't fit in the system because they use varieties which are not contemplated by the DOCs in the area where they are made, or because for commercial reasons producers choose not to use the DOC. The result is a plethora of very smart, disenfranchised estate wines with labels which give no indication of the contents of the bottle. |
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More
than 20 wine-making regions cover “the
boot,” whose climate and landscape are ideal for wine
production. Italy has twenty different wine-making regions,
divided into four main geographic areas; Northern, Central,
Southern, and the Islands
