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Central and Southern Italy

Table of Contents
  1. Tuscany (Toscana)
  2. Umbria
  3. Marches (Marche)
  4. Abruzzo
  5. Latium (Lazio)
  6. Molise
  7. Campania
  8. Apulia (Puglia)
  9. Basilicata
  10. Calabria
  11. Siciliy (Sicilia)
  12. Sardinia (Sardegna)
  13. Review Quizzes

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Tuscany (Toscana)

On the Tyrrhenian Coast of Italy, the region of Tuscany has become a byword for Italian culture. A famous artistic legacy and rich history match the natural beauty of the Tuscan countryside, unfolding in waves of golden and green hills that ebb and flow between the Apennine Mountains and the sea.



Wine is deeply embedded in Tuscany’s cultural heritage—the famous medieval Florentine poet Dante Alighieri praised the Vernaccia of San Gimignano, and legislation delimiting the Chianti zone dates to 1716. The first DOC and DOCG zones to be authorized in Italy were Tuscan. Wine and commercial agriculture are big business in Tuscany, and the hills are a patchwork of olive tree groves, vineyards, and wheat fields—a natural evolution of the “promiscuous” agriculture that ancient Romans practiced, wherein these three staple crops of Tuscany were planted side by side in the same fields. In the past, Chianti was synonymous with Italian wine—and a reminder, not unfairly, of its troubled quality. Historically bottled in a fiasco due to the inferior quality of Italian glass, the squat, straw-covered Chianti bottles came to epitomize the rustic, cheap nature of Italian wine in the late 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Tuscany’s winemakers have responded with a surge in quality over the last quarter century, slashing vineyard yields and building on the successes of the “Super-Tuscan” trailblazers Marquis Mario Rocchetta, who released the first commercial vintage of Sassicaia in 1968, and his nephew Piero Antinori, whose Tignanello bottling soon followed. While the benchmark for quality has been raised significantly, it may be at the expense of typicity—the Bordeaux grapes and model of winemaking extend great influence over the modern Tuscan
Comments

  • The section on Puglia above includes the following text: 'top quality Negroamaro may be blended with a small amounts of Malvasia Nera or other red grapes'. Minor typo: 'blended with a small amounts' should read 'blended with small amounts'.

  • Another section of text from the section on Campania: 'Falanghina also excels in the panoramic coastal DOCs of Campi Flegrei and Costa d'Amalfi, where is it blended with the rare white Biancolella grape to produce a mellower and lusher style of wine.' Minor typo: 'where is it blended' should read 'where it is blended'.

  • The section on Campania above includes the following text: 'The wine at the time was sweet or dry, strong enough to be inflammable, and probably produced from the Aminean grape, a Greek import known today as Greco.' Alas, English is a perplexing language where flammable and inflammable mean the same thing, but my sense is that flammable the more frequent choice, per Merriam-Webster. More importantly, however, this text asserts a Greek origin to the grape Greco, though commonly claimed (due to the name) I thought the jury might still be out on that one. But the text would make me think that the Greek origins of Greco are without question.

  • The section on Lazio above includes the following text: 'The Trebbiano-based white wines of Est! Est!! Est!!! di Montefiascone DOC are routinely cited for their “creative” back-story, which is retold ad naseum elsewhere, rather than their inherent quality.' Minor typo: 'ad naseum' should read 'ad nauseam'.

  • The section on Toscana above includes the following text: 'Bolgheri Superiore wines are aged for a minimum two years (one year in barrique) and show a minimum alcohol of 12.5%.' Is this right? Though I see that Bolgheri Sassicaia DOC stipulates 18 months in 'botti di rovere dicapacità non superiore a 225 litri' the Bolgheri DOC requirement for Superiore only stipulates 12 months in 'botti di rovere' without restriction as to the size of the barrels. So the year need not be in barrique, correct? 


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