For a student of wine, Italy presents arguably the most dizzying abundance of native grape varieties, appellations, and wine styles of any nation. While the country’s unmatched diversity might induce confusion, the study of its wines is among the most rewarding of subjects. The world’s highest volume of wine is produced in Italy, and vineyards are cultivated in each of its 20 regions. The country is perhaps best known for its red wines, with collectors regularly gravitating toward Super Tuscans and the three B’s: Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello di Montalcino. Yet, importantly, its palette also includes the best-selling sparkling wine worldwide by volume, Prosecco; the most established regions for sparkling reds; a series of overlooked, ageworthy whites; fortified wines that, like Madeira, once also endured long sea voyages; and the most extensive tradition of dried-grape wines found anywhere.
The boot’s contributions to the wine industry are not new. Ancient Rome vinified some of the most prized delicacies of the classical world, its soldiers helped spread the vine across the Mediterranean basin and beyond, and its scholars provided the most significant primary accounts of early wine. Italy’s influence continues today, as its winegrowers harness the potential of the country’s indigenous grapes with renewed energy and continue to balance their dignified traditions with a spirit of innovation captured in their finest bottles.
Much of the discussion about ancient winegrowing on the Italian Peninsula centers on the Romans, but viticulture is known to have begun long before Rome’s founding, traditionally—though tenuously—dated to 753 BCE. The precise origins of Italian viticulture remain unclear, especially in light of the discovery in 2017 of wine residue on ceramic storage vessels found in a cave at Monte Kronio, in southwestern Sicily. Analysis places these prehistoric wines in the Copper Age, roughly 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, far earlier than the date that had long been proposed for Italy’s first wines, and included with the most ancient evidence of winemaking, following that of Georgia and potentially China.
This sector of the Sicilian coastline as well as parts of southern Italy would later fall under the control of what the Romans called Magna Graecia (Great Greece). The Greeks also gave their Italian territories the epithet Oenotria (Land of Wine). Although viticulture existed prior to this time, most recently by the Phoenicians (traders whose territory corresponded approximately to modern Lebanon), the Greeks were widely responsible for this initial boom in Italian wine culture in the first millennium BCE. Under their rule, the vine was firmly established throughout Sicily, notably near Mount Etna, and crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea to the mainland. The Murgentina grape, which thrived in Sicily’s volcanic soils, grew in similar terroir near Pompeii, on Mount Vesuvius.
Further north, the Etruscans, focused generally in what is today Tuscany, also came into contact with the Phoenicians. Under Phoenician influence, the Etruscans likely transitioned from mixed alcoholic beverages, fermented from a variety of fruits and grains, similar to Celtic grog, toward wine, while also modeling their amphorae on Phoenician examples. Beyond local consumption, the Etruscans traded their wines with the Celts in southern France and planted vineyards there. Although the Celts were a predominately beer-drinking society, their interaction with Etruscan wine was substantial. The discovery of a shipwreck south of Provence revealed piles of Etruscan amphorae that would have contained around 40,000 liters of wine.
While it is difficult to separate legend from history in Rome’s early centuries, Roman antiquity is divided into three phases: the regal period, beginning in 753 BCE with Rome’s likely mythic founder and first king, Romulus; the Roman Republic, starting in 509 BCE, under which Rome was ruled by two annually elected consuls; and the Roman Empire, which lasted from the ascension of Emperor Augustus in 27 BCE, just 17 years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, in 476 CE. For the first several hundred years, Rome’s boundaries were largely confined to the city itself and small neighboring areas with which it fought or made agreements. Rome’s great era of expansion did not commence until midway through the Roman Republic, in the third century BCE. By the end of the Second Punic War, with the defeat of Hannibal and the Carthaginians, Rome included almost all of the Italian Peninsula and much of the French and Spanish coastline. At the height of its territorial reach, in 117 CE, Rome incorporated the entire Mediterranean basin as well as such disparate lands as today’s England, southern Germany, the whole of Iberia, and much of the Black and Red Seas.
The Romans’ documentation of viticulture is some of the most robust and illuminating that remains from the classical world. Cato devotes considerable prose to winegrowing in his agricultural treatise De agri cultura (Concerning the Cultivation of the Land), as did Columella, who followed in the first century BCE with De re rustica (On Agriculture). Palladius and Varro notably penned volumes of the same name and of similar importance. Collectively, these works demonstrate Rome’s many improvements in the vineyard, including some understanding of such advanced topics as yield restrictions and grafting. Perhaps the most cited Roman authority on wine, however, is Pliny the Elder. Natural History, his surviving work from the first century CE, is written in 37 books, with Books 14 and 17 dedicated to wine and viticulture. In addition to sharing technical observations, Pliny ranks the best wines of the Roman Empire and describes the relationship between soil and wine quality. He writes that although winegrowing was widespread earlier, superior Roman wines were not vinified until the second century BCE, noting Opimius’s consulship in 121 BCE as a particularly heralded vintage.
The Romans understood the critical role of place in determining winegrowing potential. The most celebrated wines of Rome were concentrated around what is today Lazio and Campania, with the wines from the Colli Albani immediately outside Rome earning particularly high praise. The most prized ancient wine was Falernian (Falernum in Latin), believed to come from the south-facing slopes of Monte Massico, north of Naples. Falernian was further classified into three quality levels. The best wines, Faustianum, came from the midslope, followed by Caucinum, grown on the hilltops, and last, general Falernum, harvested near the base. Altogether, the system was not unlike what is still used to separate grand cru, premier cru, and village Burgundy. Beyond Falernian, a number of other Roman wines were also esteemed, including Caecuban, a white grown near southern Lazio’s Lago di Fondi; Surrentine, or Surrentinum, an acidic white from the Sorrento Peninsula; Vesbius, or Vesuvinum, from the volcanic soils of Mount Vesuvius; Mamertinum, a Sicilian delicacy favored by Julius Caesar; and Pucinum, an early success for northern Italy in today’s Friuli. Growers of these wines practiced diverse viticultural techniques. In some vineyards, for example, the vines were trellised, while in others they were trained to climb up tree trunks.
Generally, the finest wines of ancient Rome were sweet, fermented from grapes that were dried—a practice learned from the Greeks—on mats outdoors, on the vine through delayed harvest, or by twisting the stems to accelerate desiccation. Dry examples of Falernian and other top wines, however, were also made. Still, in many essential ways, these ancient wines differed from contemporary passito wines. Additives such as tree resins (not unlike that used for Greek Retsina), gypsum, pitch, ashes, herbs, and honey were commonplace, as was seawater, all of which Cato suggests for hiding flaws in and helping preserve more ordinary wines. The best wines were those demonstrating some capacity to age. They were often matured in amphorae with considerable headspace to encourage oxidative, rancio-like character, an amber hue, and, ultimately, longevity. Such wines were generally reserved for Rome’s elite. Soldiers, plebeians, and slaves also enjoyed wine, though the wines they typically consumed were more dilute and sour. Some would come from the second or third pressings, or pomace mixed with water, referred to today as piquette.
Rome’s influence on the development of wine reached far beyond the confines of the Italian Peninsula. As the Romans conquered more territory, they increased the range of viticulture, tending to vineyards from the British Isles to Belgium to Northern Africa, with some areas, of course, showing greater potential than others. Efforts were made to curtail the production of wine outside Italy, such as Emperor Domitian’s 92 CE edict ordering the destruction of certain vineyards elsewhere in the Roman Empire (primarily to encourage the planting of cereal grains during a time of famine), but the law was difficult to enforce. In places that already held winegrowing traditions, the Romans brought various improvements through their exacting practices. Rome also introduced vinifera to such classic regions as Germany’s Mosel Valley and, most significantly, proliferated the vine throughout Gaul in the early part of the first millennium. Accordingly, many of France’s wine regions, including Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and the Rhône Valley, either originate with the Romans or were transformed by their contributions. While wine was widely traded by ship in amphorae across the Mediterranean, Rome’s inland reaches prompted a transition toward barrels. This new wooden vessel proved easier to maneuver, especially for transporting wines traded by land, and could carry more liquid. Barrels were considered a poorer choice for maturation—their porousness accelerated oxidation—but this was of little concern if the wines were destined to satiate the masses or to be used as military rations.
In addition to its use as a source of pleasure and calories, wine in ancient Rome was also a religious rite, tied to the worship of Bacchus, the Roman equivalent of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, fertility, theater, and music. Festivals honoring Bacchus, namely Bacchanalia, were among Rome’s rowdiest, combining sexual activity and animal sacrifice with copious wine drinking—so much so that Bacchanalia was banned by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE. The role of wine in religion took on new meaning in the Common Era, as it came to signify the blood of Christ. Emperor Constantine converted from paganism and transitioned Christianity to become the dominant religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE, moving the capital from Rome to Constantinople. Though wholly different from its role during the Roman Republic, wine’s new religious prominence as part of the Eucharist would reinstate the vitality of viticulture across the Roman Empire, through its fall and for centuries thereafter, even as the church distinguished sacramental wine from widespread, ordinary wine.
By the fifth century CE, the expanse of the Roman Empire grew difficult to manage and increasingly susceptible to invaders. Upon his death, in 395 CE, Emperor Theodosius I divided his territory in half and bequeathed the realms to his sons. Honorius came to rule the Western Roman Empire, while Arcadius took the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, centered at Constantinople. The Western Roman Empire, however, soon reached its demise, first with the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 and ultimately with the coronation of the Ostrogoth Odoacer as the first king of Italy in 476, overthrowing the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus. What followed over the centuries were frequent shifts in territorial leadership across Italy, resulting in a fragmented series of duchies, kingdoms, and city-states across the landscape. For much of the late first millennium, northern Italy was held by the Lombards, before the Frankish Charlemagne captured Rome and the north for the Carolingian Empire and became the first Holy Roman Emperor. Soon after, Sicily and the south sustained attacks from the east during the early Muslim conquests. As in much of Spain, Arab influence can still be felt in southern Italy.
Less is understood about the wines of the early Middle Ages. Though winegrowing across Italy did not cease with Rome’s fall, the great wines of the ancient world vanished, as did the important trade routes critical to the fine-wine industry. As production dwindled, wine became a more local commodity for several centuries, especially as the mountainous terrain rendered inter-Italian trade challenging and impractical. What was made is thought to have been weak, dry, and intended for immediate consumption. Some insight is provided by Petrus de Crescentiis in his 14th-century work Liber ruralium commodorum (Book of Rural Benefits), in which he discusses the differences between wines of his time and those described by Pliny and Columella. He notes the necessity of topping off in barrel to avoid acetification and explains how to rack.
Of any country, Italy has the most widespread and diverse sweet winemaking tradition. While botrytized, late-harvest, and fortified wines are all produced here, Italy is most associated with its dried-grape wines. Often referred to as vini da meditazione, or “meditation wines” due to their contemplative powers and ability to be enjoyed alone, Italy’s dried-grape wines are made in all 20 regions, from nearly every grape imaginable, and permitted in more than 25% of DOC/Gs. They are also called passito wines, made through the appassimento process of grape drying, though may be identified by other names as well, such as vin santo or recioto. The drying process varies by region; in southern Italy, where disease pressure is lower, it is generally performed outside over several weeks, while in northern Italy, where autumn rain is a greater threat, drying takes place indoors over the course of several months. Some dried-grape wines, such as Amarone della Valpolicella and Sforzato di Valtellina, are also fermented dry or nearly dry. Unfortunately, because of a dwindling global market for sweet wine and the high cost of making them, many dried-grape wines risk extinction.
The Crusades, beginning in the late 11th century, held two primary objectives: to protect Byzantium from Islamic invaders and to reunite western Europe with the Eastern Roman Empire. What Crusaders found in the eastern Mediterranean was a surviving practice of dried-grape winemaking, akin to those of ancient Rome. Such sweet wines were plentiful in Crete, which fell to the control of the Republic of Venice in 1212, and could also be found in Cyprus (Commandaria) and elsewhere in the Levant. The rival port cities of Venice and Genoa imported these wines into Italy and encouraged imitations to be produced domestically. During the 13th and 14th centuries, dried-grape winemaking was renewed throughout the Italian Peninsula, and the wines once again earned a place among the most sought after in the world. Referred to as romneys, they were particularly cherished as a rare window into the great wines of ancient Rome and the traditions thought to have been lost. Their production further solidified Italian dominance in the re-emerging wine routes, as it was not viable to ferment similar wines in the rainy, cold autumn climates of northern Europe. Various Italian Vernaccias and Malvasias crossed the Alps to wealthy consumers in the north, creating a network that served as a forerunner to the modern wine trade. The Catholic Reconquista of Spain from Moorish rule, however, ended this period for Italian wine, as Spanish sack, essentially a diluted dried-grape wine, offered a cheaper alternative for England and the northern markets.
The decline of the romneys, however, coincided with the rise of a region that would later define the image of Italian wine worldwide: Chianti. As a wine, Chianti is first mentioned in text in 1398, and various documents from the following century note the region’s quality. In his analysis of Dante’s Divine Comedy, for example, Cristoforo Landino claims that Chianti “has always been a most fertile source of excellent wine.” The Chianti and Chianti Classico wines of today provide little understanding of their early relatives. The wine mentioned in 1398 was white, and even the subsequent reds of the region were not built on Sangiovese until much later. But the ascent of Chianti marks a shift of economic opportunity toward Tuscany and the Republic of Florence, regarded as the birthplace of the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Following the Black Death (a breakout of bubonic plague), in the late 1340s, the Florentine population was cut in half. Despite the devastation, Florence experienced an exciting agricultural restructuring in the following decades. Because of the decreased demand for grains, other crops, such as grapevines and olive trees, earned greater prominence across Tuscany, with vineyards covering over 30% of the farmland in some areas. Vineyards of the noble Florentine estates were tended by sharecroppers under the mezzadria system, which endured through the late 20th century. The name derives from the word mezzo (half), referencing how profits were split between tenant farmers and their landlords (minus the upfront loans of equipment, livestock, and other resources). The mezzadria system initially promoted a modernization of vineyards, training vines on stakes in more densely planted rows. Later, however, a form of mixed agriculture became more widespread.
Florence’s economic growth also fueled a rise of powerful merchants in Tuscany. These men regularly attended the Champagne fairs, where they traded luxury goods and learned about French winemaking practices. The new wines of Chianti gained a reputation in Florence as well as the Republic of Siena to the south, and they increased in value despite the challenges of transportation into these urban spaces. At the same time, the Medicis, a wealthy banking family, rose to power in Florence. Under their prolific reign and patronage, Florence ushered in the Renaissance through dynamic achievements in art, architecture, literature, music, philosophy, and science that would ignite similar rebirths throughout Italy and across Europe.
Following a series of quality improvements in the late 17th century, Chianti found a new market in England, whose trade relations with France had deteriorated during a period of wars. This new success partly caused Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to issue in 1716 a bando (announcement) demarcating the regions of Chianti as well as Pomino, Valdarno, and Carmignano. His edict marks the first known delimited appellations, preceding the Douro and Tokaj, both of which followed later that century. What was then called Chianti today corresponds roughly to Chianti Classico. Cosimo III’s bando further sought to counter the effects of a rise in wine fraud following Chianti’s dismal 1607 vintage, after which merchants blended similarly inferior wine from other areas despite maintaining the Chianti name. Some winegrowers chose to sell their wines in glass bottles, rather than barrel, to assure quality. Regrettably, fraudulent Chianti continued to be sold, and although Italian wine accounted for 10% of imports to England in the early 18th century, by the late 1700s, the English grew skeptical of and disappointed in Chianti. In 1775, Sir Edward Barry wrote, “We seldom meet with any good wines imported here from Italy. The Chianti was formerly much esteemed in England, but entirely lost its character.” He continues to describe Chianti wines at this time as “disagreeable” and “rough.”
Further south, however, the English continued to guide the Sicilian wine industry. In 1770, John Woodhouse first arrived in Sicily to discover the inexpensive price of grapes. The English already had long-established, influential relationships as investors in and consumers of Port and Madeira, and Woodhouse saw an opportunity to make a similarly styled but cheaper fortified wine in Marsala. Woodhouse’s new wines appealed to Thomas Jefferson and then to Admiral Nelson’s navy during the Napoleonic Wars for their stability during the trip back to England.
Throughout the 19th century, Italian wine continued to evolve closer toward the styles produced today. The establishment of several wine academies throughout the Italian Peninsula led to research aimed at viticultural improvements. Barolo, which had typically been a light, semisweet, slightly sparkling red, was first fermented dry in the 1840s by the French winemaker Louis Oudart, charged with the task by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who later became Italy’s first prime minister. Clemente Santi began experimenting with red winemaking in the 1850s in Montalcino, a region recognized at that time for its sweet, sparkling, and white Moscadello wines. He had invented his brunello by 1865, continuing to perfect his monovarietal, ageworthy Sangiovese wines over the next decades. Soon after, Baron Bettino Ricasoli (who later followed Benso as prime minister) created his formula for a modern Chianti wine. In Ricasoli’s blend, Sangiovese displaced Canaiolo as the dominant grape, and, in younger wines, Ricasoli included white varieties.
Despite these achievements, the Italian Peninsula remained in a centuries-long period of stagnation, referred to as the decadenza (decline) and echoed in its wine culture, which failed to compete with that of France or Spain. The reasons for Italy’s post-Renaissance stasis were multifold. The Protestant Reformation reduced the influence of the Catholic Church throughout Europe and thus Italy’s central role in the Continent’s balance of power. More significant was the continued division of the Italian Peninsula at the hands of warring powers. Following the Congress of Vienna and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was annexed to the Habsburg-controlled Austrian Empire; King Victor Emmanuel I became the ruler of Piedmont-Sardinia (which had already subsumed the Republic of Genoa); the northeast comprised the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, Modena and Reggio, and Lucca, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany; and the Papal States separated northern Italy from the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, under which the Bourbon King Ferdinand IV controlled the south.
A movement toward independence and unification, or Risorgimento, of Italy swelled in the following decades, bolstered by Giuseppe Mazzini’s Giovine Italia (Young Italy) society, founded in 1831. In the 1840s, the new, liberal pope, Pius IX, sympathized with the revolutionaries, who in 1848 participated in a series of revolts across Italy against their respective rulers. The Franco-Austrian War of 1859, or the Second Italian War of Independence (the first referencing the events of 1848 in the north), drove the Austrians from Lombardy, then annexed by Piedmont-Sardinia. In return for France’s aid, Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Nice and Savoy to Napoleon III. By 1861, the new Kingdom of Italy, ruled by King Victor Emmanuel II, and with Camillo Benso elected as the first prime minister, unified almost all of the peninsula for the first time since the Roman Empire. In 1870, Italy recaptured Rome and named it the capital.
The young nation existed only briefly before Europe’s entire wine industry was upended by the arrival of phylloxera, first spotted in France in the mid-1860s. The destructive aphid followed bouts of oidium and peronospora that had begun damaging Italy, primarily in the northern regions, in the 1850s. Fortunately, by the time phylloxera reached Italian soils in the late 1870s, initially in Lombardy and Sicily, the antidote of grafting onto phylloxera-resistant American rootstock had already proved successful in Bordeaux. This remedy helped curb the devastation, but recovery was expensive, especially in the hard-hit and poorer regions in Sicily and southern Italy. The series of maladies also dealt the first major blow to Italy’s vine diversity; as vineyards were replanted, cultivars that were more productive and disease resistant—and, occasionally, foreign—were favored over those recognized for quality. Fraud and adulteration also increased during this period throughout Europe, as wine shortages inspired merchants to sell cheap beverages diluted with water and dried grapes and fruits. In 1904, Italy passed legislation requiring wine to be fermented from fresh grapes without additives. Soon after, World War I further disrupted vineyard revival, with Italy entering on the side of the Allied Powers in 1915, despite its 1882 alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary. As part of the country’s realignment, Italy was guaranteed control of Alto Adige and officially annexed the region from Austria-Hungary in 1920.
Following World War I, Italy fell to fascism in 1922 under the command of Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. At this time, Chianti remained Italy’s most internationally recognized wine. Although quality was middling, the region’s reputation continued to plummet as Chianti impersonators emerged from as close as Rùfina, to the north of Florence, and as far as California, where the Italian Swiss Colony labeled its wines Tipo Chianti (meaning “Chianti type”) and mimicked the signature squat fiaschi. Instead of safeguarding the concept of a region of origin, in 1924 the Italian government passed a law validating the concept of vino tipo, whereby wines could legally be labeled by their perceived character rather than true place. In response, Chiantigiani organized into the Consorzio per la difesa del vino tipico del Chianti e della sua marca di origine, a predecessor to today’s Consorzio Vino Chianti Classico. This first move set off a series of legislative battles in Tuscany to defend the Chianti name as well as initiate a broader discussion on the merits of protected appellations. Such conversations, however, were halted at the onset of World War II. Italy began the war allied with Hitler, but by 1943 the Armistice of Cassibile sealed Italy’s surrender to the Allies. Mussolini was executed two years later, and in 1946 Italy re-established itself as a republic, drafting a new constitution thereafter.
Beginning in the 1950s, following the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which formed the European Economic Commission, the new government of a financially fragile Italy enacted sweeping agricultural reforms that effectively dissolved the mezzadria system, which had grown increasingly corrupt over the centuries. The effects on the Italian wine industry were conflicting. To some degree, the new measures helped spur modernization; landowners were better incentivized for quality wine production as they tended to their own fields. But these developments marked a starting point for the contemporary labor crisis, as agricultural workers fled the countryside for more promising opportunities in urban centers. Their exodus resulted in the abandonment of many vineyards and the loss once again of rarified native grape varieties.
In 1963, Italy finally addressed the question of wine origin through the creation of its own appellation scheme, molded from what was born in France in the 1930s. The new classification established both the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) and Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) categories, though the first examples were not awarded until 1966 and 1980, respectively. In many regards, the DOC/G system indicated progress for the Italian wine industry in its effort to defend and promote the country’s historic wine regions and styles. But not every producer favored the new program; some found it restricted innovation or even quality. The requirement of certain varieties also hindered the preservation of lesser-known, though sometimes quality, indigenous grapes, prohibited from various DOC/G blends. Goria’s Law, enacted in 1992, introduced the Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) tier to allow winemakers more concrete designations that are less strict in their vinicultural requirements than DOC/Gs.
In many ways, it was the reaction of Italian winegrowers against the DOC/G system that spurred their industry’s quality revolution. In 1968, Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta harvested his first commercial vintage of Sassicaia, a Cabernet Sauvignon–based wine from the Tuscan Coast, outside any existing appellation, bottled as simple Vino da Tavola. He quickly attracted neighbors who followed suit with top-shelf wines from French varieties. To the interior, producers in Chianti Classico, eager to make monovarietal Sangiovese wines, absent the mandatory inclusion of white grapes, similarly declassified their wines to Vino da Tavola. Despite changes in regulation, many of those wines today remain IGT rather than DOCG. In tandem with producers in Tuscany, winegrowers throughout Italy made important adjustments to their wine styles. In the 1980s, a new generation of “modernist” winemakers in Barolo sought to make more immediately pleasurable, contemporary wines. Elio Altare notoriously took a chain saw to his father’s old casks. Unsurprisingly, one of his major contributions—along with those of like-minded producers, such as Paolo Scavino, Luciano Sandrone, and Angelo Gaja—was a move toward maturation in new French barriques as well as shorter maceration periods and riper fruit. In 1950s Valpolicella, Bertani first introduced a dry appassimento-method wine, Amarone, a counter to the historic, sweet Recioto and one of Italy’s most famous reds today. A couple decades later, in Montefalco, Arnaldo Caprai similarly fermented Sagrantino dry, which until then had been made into a passito wine.
As Italy crossed into the 21st century, the country’s wine industry continued to find its balance between the conservation of its heritage regions and vinicultural traditions and new ideas catering to a more global audience. Today, many of the successful wines of the postwar decades still count among Italy’s most collected bottlings. Yet many critics and winegrowers have returned to wines of greater restraint, arguing for what is often described as more classic or historic means of production. While both exceptional and indistinctive wines from international varieties persist, Italian researchers and winegrowers are identifying and vinifying autochthonous grapes, in many circumstances also outside the DOC/G system, and rescuing them from extinction. A new suite of producers identify as natural winegrowers, resuscitating such styles as metodo ancestrale (pétillant naturel) sparkling wines and skin-contact whites (orange wines). In short, Italy today boasts a greater diversity of wines than ever.
According to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine’s 2019 statistical report, Italy is the world’s largest producer of wine, vinifying 54.8 million hectoliters in 2018. The country has held this position since 2015, though France has taken the top spot in previous years. Italy harvests more wine grapes than any other nation, cultivating 7.4 million tons in 2018. Only China yields a higher grape tonnage, though the vast majority of the Chinese crop is sold as table grapes. Italy, however, does not claim the largest vineyard area; instead, Spain does, a metric widely attributed to its low-yielding, widely spaced old vineyards. Over 700,000 hectares in Italy are dedicated to viticulture, corresponding to approximately 2.3% of its entire land area. Italy exports roughly 20 million hectoliters of wine each year, trailing only Spain as the world’s top exporter. Domestically, Italians are the third largest consumers of wine by volume.
Often referred to as “the boot,” Italy forms a narrow peninsula in the northern Mediterranean Sea. Oriented from northwest to southeast, the country stretches approximately 1,200 kilometers. Beyond its peninsular mainland, Italy also includes two prominent islands, Sicily and Sardinia, the first and second largest in the Mediterranean, respectively, by both area and population. With the exception of a few smaller satellite islands, Italy’s latitude ranges roughly between 36.5 and 47 degrees, well within the 30- to 50-degree band considered most appropriate for quality viticulture in the Northern Hemisphere.
Italy’s land borders are longest at the northern edge of the country. From west to east, Italy touches France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia. Cultural mixing might occur in the regions nearest these boundaries, particularly toward the Italy-Austria border, in Alto Adige/Südtirol. Italy circumscribes two micronations: Vatican City and San Marino. The former is nested within the Italian capital of Rome. Vatican City serves as both the home of the pope and the seat of government for the Roman Catholic Church. San Marino borders Italy’s Emilia-Romagna and Marche regions. This hilltop nation first gained independence from the Roman Empire in 301 CE and has firmly maintained that status since Italian unification.
Vatican City and San Marino, the two micronations within Italy, each have their own wine culture. The Vatican’s relationship to wine is as a consumer. According to a study by the California-based Wine Institute, Vatican City drinks approximately 74 liters of wine, equating to about 100 bottles, per person each year—more than any other nation, and roughly twice the consumption per capita in Italy. While that may be a large quantity, the statistic is not all too surprising given the essential role wine plays in many Roman Catholic rites.
San Marino celebrates its own tiny wine industry, with a history documented as early as the 16th century. Sammarinese wine bottles, like others from certain areas throughout Italy, sport coded bands that identify authenticity and place of origin. The country’s most important winery is Cantina San Marino, a cooperative with around 100 grower-members. Vines are cultivated between 50 and 450 meters above sea level on predominately clay-limestone soils. San Marino focuses primarily on Sangiovese, Biancale, Ribolla, and Moscato, though French varieties are also planted.
The Italian landscape is largely defined by its mountain ranges. To the north, Italy is sheltered by the Alps, including such famous mountains as Mont Blanc, shared with France, and the Matterhorn, shared with Switzerland. The Dolomites compose a portion of the Eastern Alps, found in Alto Adige, the Veneto, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The narrow Apennine Mountains form the spine of Italy. While only around 40 kilometers in width at their narrowest, they run nearly the entire length of the Italian Peninsula, extending past Calabria into Sicily. Almost every Italian wine region is informed by the Apennines to some degree. Approximately one-third of Italy exists on a mountain range, while only one-fifth of the country is dedicated to plains, the largest being the Po Valley. Accordingly, 80% of Italy’s topography consists of mountains or hillsides, providing a multitude of aspects, elevations, and mesoclimates to allow for its viticultural diversity.
With more than 7,500 kilometers of coastline, Italy is significantly influenced by the moderating effect of the Mediterranean Sea. Various bays and subsections are segmented from the larger Mediterranean. The Adriatic Sea separates Italy’s east coast from the Balkans and extends into the Ionian Sea, which sits beneath Puglia. To the west, the Ligurian Sea hugs the Italian Riviera before meeting the Tyrrhenian Sea to the south. Compared to the rivers of several other major winegrowing countries, Italy’s are shorter (the longest is the Po, at around 650 kilometers) and less important for viticulture. A series of glacier-carved, freshwater lakes can be found throughout Italy, the largest—Garda, Maggiore, and Como—all found in the country’s north.
Italy has a range of soil types, with podzol (an ashy, acidic soil often derived from quartz) prominent in many of the mountainous regions. Some of the most prized wine regions, however, have various calcareous soils, such as the Tortonian soils found in Barolo or the alberese soils covering much of Chianti Classico. A range of volcanic-derived soils also blanket several esteemed regions, and the country has a number of active volcanoes, with Mount Etna in Sicily among the most important.
Italy is divided into 20 regions, which are broken down into provinces. Eighteen regions compose the mainland, with Sicily and Sardinia accounting for the other two. Although each of the 20 regions is granted certain authority for self-administration, Sicily, Sardinia, Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia enjoy greater autonomy to protect their various cultural and linguistic singularities.
For a country of Italy’s size, it is difficult to generalize about climate. Overall, the country grows warmer from the north to the south, and the west coast is warmer than the east. Much of the peninsula and the islands experience a Mediterranean climate. Broad exceptions exist in the north, where Alpine regions are characterized by a stronger continental influence and withstand the most punishing winters. Most important, Italy’s variance in elevation provides for dramatic changes in temperature in a relatively confined area. Often, but not exclusively, the most prized vineyard sites are found at higher elevations, which will usually be cooler and less humid.
Precipitation is neither excessive nor scarce across much of Italy, but generally the east coast is wetter than the west. Rainfall typically ranges between 600 and 1,000 millimeters annually, and pockets on each end of the spectrum can be found regardless of latitude. Palermo, Sicily, for example, receives approximately 970 millimeters each year, while Venice collects less, at around 750 millimeters, despite its history of catastrophic flooding.
Several important wind patterns shape Italy’s climate and viticultural potential. The hot, humid sirocco gusts north from Africa, affecting Sicily and southern Italy. The Maestrale (Mistral) is the same strong, cold, south-blowing wind that dominates France’s Rhône Valley and can be experienced nearer the French-Italian border. Bora refers to a cold and powerful Adriatic wind, while the Alpine Foehn wind is warmer. (The term Foehn has been applied to winds experienced on leeward slopes of other mountain ranges.) The Alps, however, help minimize many wind currents.
Italy’s wine quality classification regime is largely modeled after France’s Appellation d’Origine Controlée (AOC) system. Overseen by the Ministry of Agriculture, and further regulated through the European Union’s wine organization structure, Italian wine can be divided into four levels of quality: Vino, Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT), Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), and Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG).
Formerly labeled as Vino da Tavola (Table Wine), Vino, or simply “wine,” is the entry-level tier of Italy’s wine quality pyramid. Like analogous quality levels in other countries, Vino is defined by the least amount of regulation and is normally used for wines made from varieties other than those allowed in higher tiers. When working with grapes destined for Vino, winegrowers might not adhere to the more stringent viticultural and vinification practices for DOC/G and IGT wines. Neither indication of origin nor vintage or grape variety is required to be stated on the bottle. Much of the wine labeled as Vino is sold in bulk and can be found on tap or as house wine in local establishments.
A step higher is Indicazione Geografica Tipica (Typical Geographical Indication), equivalent to Protected Geographical Indication, or PGI, under the European Union’s wine quality scheme. First instituted in 1992, IGT wines, which may also be labeled by the European equivalent IGP, are viewed as a gateway between Vino and DOC wines, and regions seeking elevation to DOC status might pass through this tier. The regulations of IGT wines are stricter than those of Vino, most importantly mandating that 85% of grapes are cultivated from a designated winegrowing area. IGT wines commonly show a broad stylistic diversity, often including varieties, especially international varieties, barred from overlapping DOC/Gs. They might harness more experimental vinification techniques; many “natural” wines, for example, are bottled as IGT. These regions can encompass an entire state, such as Toscana or Terre Siciliane IGT, or be drawn more narrowly.
While Vino and IGT collectively constitute the bottom of Italy’s quality designations, it is important to note that several of the country’s most revered and collected wines continue to fall into these tiers. Italy’s quality revolution in the 1960s and ’70s included a portfolio of Super Tuscans labeled as Vino da Tavola, made using practices outside the DOC/G regulations at the time. Since then, several concessions have been made across Italy to bring the country’s top wines back under the DOC/G umbrella. Several producers, however, continue to bottle their wines as IGT, or sometimes simply Vino, for the sake of continuity, politics, or marketing.
Each of the following two quality levels qualifies as Protected Designation of Origin, or PDO, under EU classification. The Denominazione di Origine Controllata (Controlled Denomination of Origin) level was introduced in 1963, but the first DOC, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, was not recognized until 1966. As of 2019, Italy had awarded 333 DOCs. The sheer number of DOCs appears disorienting, though several are more theoretical than realized, with minuscule production and market presence.
Structured similarly to France’s AOCs, DOCs adhere to more stringent guidelines than IGT regions. While DOCs will often confine winegrowing areas that are smaller than IGTs, catchall DOCs, such as Sicilia and Friuli, remain popular. Beyond specifying regional boundaries and permitted grape varieties and styles, vinicultural qualifications—such as yields, vine density, minimum alcohol levels, residual sugar, and aging requirements, among others—are outlined in the disciplinare di produzione (production specification), the document that stipulates the regulations for each DOC. Typically these regulations are grounded in historic methods of production and designed to safeguard those traditions, though there are many exceptions. Denominazioni are governed by a consorzio (consortium), an organization composed of the region’s grower-producers, which sets these local wine laws. To be approved as DOC, wine samples often must pass a tasting panel, organized by the consorzio, to demonstrate typicity. DOCs, like AOCs, are often named for the winegrowing region alone, but they might also feature a wine style or variety, such as Sforzato di Valtellina or Aglianico del Vulture. Recent trends favor the marketing of place above variety; the 2016 inversion of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Colline Teramane DOC to Colline Teramane Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is one example. As of 2011, roughly 35% of Italian wine was classified as DOC.
The Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (Controlled and Guaranteed Denomination of Origin) level represents the pinnacle of Italy’s wine quality classification program. Like the DOC tier, the DOCG concept was introduced in 1963, but the first DOCGs were not granted until 1980, when Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Barolo, and Barbaresco were elevated from DOC. By 1992, Italy recognized only 11 DOCGs, and the concept was widely acknowledged for bestowing only the most historic and high-performing regions with DOCG status. Today, 77 DOCGs are listed, and some detractors question the assumed superiority of DOCG over DOC.
As with Beaujolais and nouveau, Italy has its own traditions of novello winemaking, albeit much less widely celebrated. Novello wines offer the first taste of any given vintage and cannot be sold until November 6 of the year of harvest. Similar to nouveau winemaking in Beaujolais, novello relies on carbonic maceration, a minimum 30% nationwide (though some DOC/Gs set stricter thresholds), to provide the wines with a youthful, fruity profile. Novello can be found in many pockets of Italy, with northern appellations such as Bardolino and Alto Adige producing what are perhaps considered the best examples.
The DOCG category embraces such well-recognized appellations as Chianti Classico, Franciacorta, Amarone della Valpolicella, Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco, Taurasi, and Cerasuolo di Vittoria, in addition to those previously mentioned and others. Regions must wait a minimum of 5 years after DOC approval until they can apply to be upgraded to DOCG. Hypothetically, DOCG wines meet the strictest protocols and quality controls. DOCG as well as some DOC wine bottles are marked with a unique serial number, typically printed on a band wrapped around the capsule, as a measure against counterfeiting, although challenges with fraud persist for certain producers and appellations. DOCGs are found in 15 of Italy’s 20 states; those without DOCG regions are Trentino-Alto Adige, Valle d’Aosta, Liguria, and Molise.
A variety of additional terminology can appear on an Italian wine label. Perhaps most important is the name of a subzone. Many DOCs have codified official subzones, and, in conjunction with the recent global trend toward labeling wine with greater specificity of place, an abundance of Italian winegrowers have been eager to promote the characteristics of their individual subzone over those of wider appellations, often criticized for being designed too large. While the number of subzones, if any, per DOC/G will vary, several will include a Classico zone. Typically, the Classico zone of any DOC/G (sometimes established as a separate DOC/G outright) will refer to the historic region of production for a given wine region, for example, Soave Classico and Chianti Classico. An increasing number of Italian producers have expressed interest in bottling vineyard-designate wines, though the permissions to print vineyard names on labels vary by region.
While Spain administers a national minimum standard for wines labeled reserva and gran reserva, Italy issues no such baseline. The terms riserva and superiore are commonplace across Italy, and the requirements for such wines are dictated at the DOC/G level. Oftentimes, those requirements will involve an extended period of maturation before release. Vigne vecchie, a term that refers to old vines, has no formal definition at the national level in Italy (or in much of the wine world), though its use has recently come under stricter government scrutiny.
Italy is believed to have more indigenous grape varieties in commercial production than any other country, though this is challenging to quantify. Several hundred native Italian grapes are counted, with some estimates citing over 1,000 cultivars originating from the Italian Peninsula and its islands. Italy has played a leading role in the preservation and identification of endangered cultivars, in addition to dedicating considerable hectarage to international varieties. The following presents several of the grapes with not only large plantings in Italy but distribution across multiple regions. Important local varieties will be discussed in the regional expert guides.
Pinot Grigio: Italy’s second most planted white variety, Pinot Grigio (Pinot Gris), for better or worse, produces the country’s best-known white wines in export markets, having skyrocketed to global popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. Technically, Pinot Grigio is not a unique grape variety, but rather a pink-skinned mutation of the ancient variety Pinot and otherwise genetically identical to Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc. Its coloring is unstable—even among Pinot Grigio vines, the hues can vary widely—and it is not uncommon for clusters of Pinot Grigio to emerge in Pinot Noir vineyards. With its tight clusters, Pinot Grigio is susceptible to botrytis, but in optimal conditions this can result in high-quality dessert wines.
Pinot Grigio can be identified by its soft floral aromatics and subtle phenolic bitterness, matched with middling acidity. Almost exclusively vinified in inert vessels, Italian Pinot Grigio is typically drier and slightly more acidic than Alsatian Pinot Gris. While sometimes considered inferior in quality, top Pinot Grigio wines from Alto Adige and Friuli merit recognition among Italy’s finest whites that can challenge the complexity of French examples, albeit in a different style. An abundance of bland IGT Pinot Grigio, however, is bottled in flatter, warmer, and less distinctive terroirs in the Veneto and throughout Italy.
The white-berried Pinot Bianco is also harvested in northern Italy, where some of the world’s finest examples of the variety are made. In addition to still white wines, Pinot Bianco is authorized for sparkling wine production in both Trento and Franciacorta.
Trebbiano Toscano: According to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, Trebbiano Toscano ranks as the world’s fourth most harvested white wine grape variety. Its history of cultivation in Tuscany has been well documented for centuries, and it is believed to have been introduced in the 14th century to France, where it is called Ugni Blanc and best known for distillation into Cognac and Armagnac. Today, its 21,000 hectares can be found throughout Italy, with high concentrations toward the south, in such regions as Puglia, Sicily, and Abruzzo. Beyond wine and brandy, Trebbiano Toscano is also made into the famous balsamic vinegars of Modena. Italy hosts an abundance of varieties that incorporate the name Trebbiano, though they share no single genetic link and, in most cases, are unrelated.
High yielding, as a dry wine Trebbiano Toscano is known to be rather undistinctive. Due to its high acidity, it has often been harnessed as a blending variety in white or red wines, including Chianti, in which it has played a historic role. Trebbiano Toscano performs well in both wines and products of process, as shown by the extraordinary complexity of several Tuscan vin santi, for which Trebbiano Toscano contributes greatly to the traditional blend.
Glera: The precise origins of Glera remain open to debate. What was long simply called Prosecco in the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia was ultimately discovered to be three distinct grape varieties: Prosecco Tondo, what is known today simply as Glera; Prosecco Nostrano, identified as being identical to Malvasia Bianca Lunga; and Prosecco Lungo. The latter today is referred to as Glera Lungo and often interplanted with Glera, with which it has some genetic ties. DNA studies have shown key similarities to Croatian varieties, suggesting Istrian autochthony.
Glera is Italy’s third most cultivated grape, though production is almost exclusively limited to the Veneto and to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where it is used to make Prosecco. Late ripening and predisposed to mildews, Glera is moderately aromatic, with a soft acidity. Because of these organoleptic properties, the variety is thought to be better suited to Charmat method sparkling wines (often with noticeable residual sugar), where freshness and florality are better preserved. However, both ancestral and traditional method wines from Glera can be found. The best Glera wines hail from Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene, most notably from its rive and its “grand cru” Cartizze.
Verdicchio: While predominately associated with the Marche, where it yields the great white wines Matelica and Castelli di Jesi, Verdicchio is believed to have traveled south from the Veneto. It continues to be harvested there and in Lombardy. Verdicchio’s name likely refers to its green berries. The variety has proven identical to Trebbiano di Soave, Trebbiano Valtenesi, and Trebbiano di Lugana.
Many of Italy’s most serious and longest-lived white wines are produced from Verdicchio. The variety is particularly transparent to where it is grown, with mineral-tinged examples from higher elevations, and broader, more generous wines made from warmer, lower vineyards nearer the Adriatic Sea. Verdicchio maintains relatively high acidity and ripens slowly. It is susceptible to mildews and botrytis.
Vermentino: Scholars debate the exact birthplace of Vermentino, though it’s likely that it comes from northern Italy and was later introduced to the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, where it is grown as Vermentinu. Beyond these islands, Vermentino’s primary vine area stretches from Provence, where it is called Rolle, through the Italian Riviera, though in Liguria several still attest that their Pigato is a distinct variety, despite DNA evidence to the contrary. Vermentino has achieved increased global success in recent years, and today several producers on the Tuscan Coast work with the variety. Its name probably evolved from fermento or fermentino, meaning “ferment,” a potential reference to the subtle effervescence often found in Vermentino wines. Vermentino likely unrelated to the red grape Vermentino Nero.
All top Vermentino regions are found in close proximity to the Mediterranean, which helps mitigate frost risk for this early-budding variety. Vermentino produces vibrant, floral wines, with a juicy midpalate and a distinctive brininess that speaks to its seaside terroirs. While Vermentino wines are generally consumed young, their quality can be very high, and some winemakers will offer more serious examples that are made with some combination of barrel contact and extended lees work.
International Varieties: Many of the best-known international white varieties have established substantial plantings in Italy. Chardonnay is Italy’s fifth most planted white variety and is made into high-quality traditional method sparkling wines in Lombardy’s Franciacorta and Alto Adige’s Trentodoc. It is also harvested in several other regions making IGT wines. Sauvignon Blanc can be found throughout Italy, producing several excellent bottlings in Alto Adige, as well as Tuscany, where it is included in a selection of white Super Tuscans. Both Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains (also known as Moscato Canelli and Moscato Bianco) and Muscat of Alexandria (also known as Moscato d’Alessandria and Zibibbo) find prominence in Italy. The former is best associated with the sparkling wines Asti and Moscato d’Asti, while the latter can be found in southern Italy, vinified into sweet delicacies such as Passito di Pantelleria.
Understanding the pink wines of Italy is nearly as confounding as grasping the country at large. Rosé wines are made across the boot and in every shade imaginable. A number of names might indicate a rosé wine in Italy, most notably rosato, or simply “rosé,” and chiaretto, which corresponds to “clairet.” While such distinctions might be helpful in other countries, in Italy the difference between rosato and chiaretto does not necessarily allude to color. Chiaretto wines will typically see longer macerations than rosati, though this is not a fixed rule. Terms like cerasuolo might refer to a rosé wine in some regions, as with Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, but red wine in another, like Sicily’s Cerasuolo di Vittoria. Winemaking varies dramatically by region, and while some producers chase the fashionable Provençal aesthetic, many continue to blur the line between red and rosé. In short, Italian rosé is remarkably diverse. Some important categories to consider are Bardolino chiaretto, Valtènesi chiaretto, Friuli’s ramato (which merges the concept of pink and orange wine), Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, and Lagrein Kretzer.
Sangiovese: With 54,000 hectares, Sangiovese is Italy’s most planted grape variety, accounting for approximately 8% of the national vineyard area. Its name is thought to derive from the Latin sanguis Jovis, or “blood of Jove (Jupiter),” and it is first mentioned in a 1600 document discussing Tuscan viticulture. While often thought of as indigenous to Tuscany, Sangiovese’s true point of origin remains nebulous. A 2004 study revealed its parentage to be Ciliegiolo, a common blending partner for Sangiovese, and the more obscure Campanian variety Calabrese di Montenuovo. Regardless, Sangiovese is known to encompass a broad clonal diversity, with several regions laying claim to unique cultivars. Important synonyms for Sangiovese include Brunello (Montalcino), Prugnolo Gentile (Montepulciano), and Nielluccio, as the grape is called in Corsica, its only major winegrowing region outside Italy.
In the vineyard, Sangiovese can be vigorous, especially among clones popular in the mid-20th century. Its thin skins also prove susceptible to botrytis. The Chianti Classico 2000 project, initiated in the late 1980s, sought to isolate Sangiovese clones with thicker skins and looser clusters both to counter disease pressures and improve wine quality. Sangiovese’s most famous regions and wines all hail from Tuscany—including Chianti, Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano—but the grape can be found across Italy, with some superior examples found in Romagna.
With such a large vineyard expanse, Sangiovese offers a diversity of styles for the consumer of Italian wine. Sangiovese wines demonstrate elevated-to-high acidity and tannin, despite the grape’s modest pigmentation. The wines will typically show a ruby color and combine savory flavors of cherry and dried herbs, and, as the grape's name implies, a distinctive sanguine character. While Sangiovese is historically vinified in large, primarily neutral Slavonian oak vessels, internationally styled examples might make use of smaller, new French oak barrels. In addition to red wines, Sangiovese is crafted into rosati, sparkling, and sweet wines, such as the rare vin santo occhio di pernice.
Montepulciano: The variety Montepulciano should not be mistaken for the Tuscan town of Montepulciano, where the Sangiovese-based Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is made. This confusion has led some to believe that the grape Montepulciano originated near the place of the same name, but it is more likely that the variety is native to Abruzzo, the region with which it is most associated. While long believed identical to Pugnitello, the two have proven to be distinct varieties.
Montepulciano is Italy’s second most planted red variety, with most of its 27,000 hectares located in Abruzzo, though vineyard area is found to the region’s north and south. Vigorous and showing good disease resistance, Montepulciano is often thought of as a workhorse variety, offering cheerful, though undistinctive, midweight wines. A number of Montepulciano wines of this type are produced, but so are more concentrated, ageworthy examples, particularly in the regions of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and Cònero. In addition to red wines, Montepulciano is used for rosato, and a handful of examples of Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo are highly sought after.
Barbera: Although Barbera is predominately associated with Piedmont, the variety accounts for significant plantings in nearby Lombardy, and also further afield in Emilia-Romagna and Campania. Italy’s fourth most planted red grape, Barbera’s true origins remain nebulous. Though often believed autochthonous to Piedmont, more recent DNA findings suggest it to be a relatively recent arrival to the region.
Like Montepulciano, Barbera is categorized as a workhorse variety, but a number of high-quality examples, namely Barbera d’Alba and Barbera d’Asti made by top producers of Barolo and Barbaresco, counter such assertions. Barbera is high yielding and relatively late ripening. Its wines will commonly express moderate tannin and body but elevated acidity. Barbera can reach surprisingly high levels of alcohol in certain styles, exceeding 15% ABV. Like Sangiovese, it is often characterized by its tart, cherry flavors, coupled with dried herb and floral notes.
Aglianico: The southern Italian variety Aglianico is believed to be one of the country’s most ancient. Some posit that it provided the backbone to such treasured wines of antiquity as Falernian, but evidence is scant. Aglianico’s etymology has been said to derive from “Hellenic grapes,” but it more likely stems from the Spanish word llano (plain), as Spain ruled the central Italian Peninsula during the mid-Renaissance era. While Aglianico was long thought to be of Greek origin, DNA analysis makes no genetic connection to any existing Greek variety; rather, it exhibits similarities to a number of southern Italian grapes. Aglianico should not be confused for Aglianicone, though the two grapes do potentially share a parent-offspring relationship.
Aglianico is characterized by compact bunches with small, thick-skinned berries, producing hyperconcentrated wines, with high levels of pigment and tannin. It is late ripening and predisposed to botrytis. Aglianico is most associated with Campania and Basilicata but can be found in other southern Italian regions. Showing its greatest potential on volcanic soils, Aglianico has become most famous in the DOCGs of Taurasi and Aglianico del Vulture.
Nebbiolo: While only 5,500 hectares of Nebbiolo are planted in Italy, the grape nonetheless is often considered Italy’s finest, accounting for the pedigreed wines of Barolo and Barbaresco. Nebbiolo also yields quality wines in other Piemontese appellations, such as Gattinara, Roero, and Langhe, as well as in Lombardy’s Valtellina, where it is vinified into both rosso and sforzato wines, the latter a non-sweet dried-grape wine, akin to Amarone.
An ancient grape of unclear origin, Nebbiolo demonstrates broad clonal diversity. Offspring relationships have been found with Freisa, Vespolina, and Nebbiolo Rosé, which is a separate variety rather than a mere mutation. Nebbiolo derives from nebbia (fog), a likely reference to the abundant bloom that appears on its ripe berries, though some believe that it alludes to the fog that blankets many of Nebbiolo’s growing regions in Piedmont.
Nebbiolo is likened to Pinot Noir for its distinguished ability to reflect the sites in which it is grown. The grape shows a particular affinity for calcareous soils, from which many of its best examples are harvested. Late ripening, Nebbiolo requires a long growing season. Similar to Sangiovese, it expresses both high tannin and high acidity, often higher on both accounts than its Tuscan counterpart. Nebbiolo is commonly noted for its combination of dried floral and earthy aromas and flavors, along with anise and tart blackberry and cherry notes. Traditionally styled Nebbiolo wines can seem impenetrable and punishing in their youth due to their tannin and acid structures. Certain producers, however, might use a combination of smaller vessels and new French oak to provide more-accessible Nebbiolo wines designed for earlier consumption.
International Varieties: Despite its unparalleled breadth of commercially important indigenous grapes, Italy cultivates a large number of international varieties. Merlot is Italy’s fifth most planted cultivar and third among reds; it is also viewed as one of the most successful foreign varieties in Italy, providing for a number of the most sought-after Super Tuscans. Other Bordeaux varieties—in particular, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Carmenère (long mistaken for Cabernet Franc in certain areas)—offer several fine, often internationally styled wines, as does Syrah. Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir), finds greatest success in northern Italy, where it is vinified into quality red wines in Alto Adige as well as some of Italy’s top traditional method sparkling wines, both in Trentodoc and Franciacorta. Other than French grapes, the Spanish varieties Cannonau (Garnacha, Grenache) and Carignano (Cariñena, Carignan) have been cultivated for several centuries in Italy, where they have established unique biotypes. Both achieve full expressions in Sardinia, once held by Aragon, though they are found elsewhere in the country.
Read Part II of the Italy Expert Guide, focused on the wines of Central Italy.
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Compiled by Bryce Wiatrak (December 2020)
Edited by Sandra Ban
Hi Cokie! Technically they would be called “regioni” (regions) in Italy, but they are generally the administrative equivalent of U.S. states. They each have their own constitution, and the regions are divided into smaller provinces (like counties or parishes), and then smaller “comuni” (communes or municipalities).
Hi! Under the IGT and DOCG breakdowns, the 20 regions are referred to as states. Do we refer to them as states sometimes? Love the guide-it is amazing!!
Thanks, Molly! This is updated.
Hello! Loving this guide and learning lots! In the Sangiovese section, I see "and sweet wines, such as the rare vin santo ccchio di pernice", but I think it's supposed to be "occhio"? Thanks!!
Hey Victoria! Great Question! The DOC to DOCG standard comes from (EC) No 607/2009 of 14 July 2009. "DOCG: It is similar to the D.O.C. definition, but it also contains the word ‘Guaranteed’ and so it is assigned to wines having a particular value, that have been recognized as DOC wines since five years at least." That being said, it seems to take an average of 10 years for a DOC to make the jump to DOCG. I'd envision this process as the application at five years and the process taking another five. The guide here has been updated.
Looking for wine law clarification: this guide states that "regions must wait a minimum of 10 years after DOC approval until they can apply to be upgraded to DOCG," but the Study Guide for Northern Italy states that "regions recognized as DOC for at least five years may apply for DOCG status." When did this rule shift from 5 to 10 years? Or is one simply incorrect?
This is well written. The paragraphs and sections are so very well constructed. This makes it a delight to read and extract information. Thank you to Bryce, Sandra and the rest of the team.
I haven't been able to find any reference to an 80% requirement for IGT wines, so I'd assume that the 85% requirement is probably correct. I'm going to do a little more digging and will update if needed.
The section on Wine Law above includes the following: "The regulations of IGT wines are stricter than those of Vino, most importantly mandating that 80% of grapes are cultivated from a designated winegrowing area." The GuildSomm Expert Guide to Wine Law MODERN EU WINE CLASSIFICATIONS section, however, has the following requirement for Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) across the European Union: "At least 85% of the grapes used for its production come exclusively from this geographical area. (The remainder of grapes must be grown in the same country.)" Are Italian IGT and European IGP not equivalent in the origin requirement?
Thanks for reading, Vivian! Glad you enjoyed :)