While red wine by far remains the favorite of Italians, sparkling wine has now joined white wine in the runner-up position, according to a recent poll.
Carried out for WineNews, Italy's 'pocket wine website', the poll found that 60% of Italians preferred red wine, white wine was the choice of 15%, an equal percentage favored sparkling wine and 10% were fans of sweet dessert wines.
The vast majority of Italians, 70%, preferred domestic wines.
A preference list for Italian reds saw Montalcino on top followed respectively by those from the Langhe area in Piedmont, Valpolicella and Chianti Classico.
Despite this preference for fine wines, the poll found that Italians would not go overboard to buy an expensive wine, but rather paid attention to the ratio of quality-to- price.
Among the 30% of Italian who drank foreign wines, French wine was the overall favorite, followed by other European wines and then those from Chile, Australia, South Africa and the United States.
Champagne was the favorite French wine of Italians, followed by Bordeaux, Burgundy and Sauternes.
