Vino in veritas - Exploring Italian Wines

| Thu, 04/24/2008 - 05:54
In an exciting series of articles, wine consultant Colin Davies will be taking us on a journey to discover the delights of Italy’s many and varied wines, and its wine-growing regions. Here, he prepares us for the trip...
Photographs by Colin Davies

I would like you to come for a stroll through some of the world’s most stunning countryside, past some of the most significant events in the history of the world. As we stroll and soak this all in, we will taste the wonders of that insignificant fruit - the Italian grape. We will be bowled over by the variety of flavours it makes when converted into Italian wine. From the delicate and spicy flavours of the Alps, Dolomites and Great Lakes; through the rich full flavours of Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches; down to the hot, rich, deep south - the heel, the toe and the ball as Sicily is kicked into the delights of Marsala.

We will taste bold Barolos in Piemonte; spicy, sweet Soave (yes! not just dry); powerful Primitivo in Puglia; pretty Pinot Grigio in Trentino; Valpolicella in Verona to stand a spoon in; Falernum in Pompeii; and Passito in Pantelleria. We will sip Marsala on Mount Etna and Vin Santo in Venice. Come with me and consume copious quantities of Chianti in ‘Classico’ and the ‘Colli’.

In each article we will talk about a region and its wines. What are the grapes? What do they taste like? Which food do they go with and who makes good wine in the region. Italian wine is an immense subject because Italy has the largest variety of grapes for one country, and has the most diverse climate in which to grow them.

This fist article is devoted to a basic understanding so that your subsequent strolls will make for easier reading! Italy has the most perfect climate for growing grapes in Europe, and some claim the best in the world. Turin in northern Italy is nearer London than Sicily in southern Italy, and the climate difference between Turin and Sicily is greater than that between Turin and London.

Nearly 1,000 different styles of wine are made with more than 1,200 different registered grape clones. Some grape varieties have been on the market for over 2,500 years - Pythagoras was probably developing his theory with a glass of the Gaglioppo grape in Calabria: Cicero drank large quantities of Falerum made from the Aglianico grape. Both these men of letters actually have written about the kind of wine they drank. From 4000BC we know that a series of trading nations brought wines to Rome - Egyptians, Phoenicians, Etruscans, Carthaginians and Greeks enjoyed great success. The Romans (ever proficient!) produced more than enough of their own wine to be exporting it everywhere their conquering armies travelled. From the birth of Jesus onward, Greece called the Italian peninsular ‘Enotria’ (land of wine), and wine was so important to Greeks and Romans that they both had Gods of Wine, Bacchus Dionysus and Liber.

Romans were the first to define areas of particular wines, and by the first century BC there were 13 ‘Grand Cru’ vineyards with famous names around Rome. The Florentines (Medicis) started grading wines in the 14th and15th centuries, with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany delineating zones of important wines in 1716. Quality wines were slow in developing - wine was the drink of the peasant (vino bevanda), and it was not until 1963 that the first Government Decree (No 930) was issued controlling the quality of wine. This was forced on Italy by their EEC membership. We then had the famous ‘EEC wine lake’, created by southern France and Italy. Italy consumed 126 litres of wine per head of total population in the 1960s compared to five litres per head by the UK. By 1975 this had dropped to 107 litres per head in Italy, and the UK had risen to seven litres. By 1990, Italy drank 71 litres per head and the UK 12 litres. The latest figures (the year 2000) show Italy at 55 litres and the UK at 15 litres per head. The growth of quality has mirrored this drop in volume. It has taken 30 years to convince the world that there was something else to drink from Italy other than Lambrusco. Italy had higher volume exports of wines than France each year even up to 1991 because of Lambrusco sales to the USA and UK... viva la Mafioso!

So, gone are the days of the farmworker taking his lunchtime bread and salami with a litre of local red wine and having a couple of hours siesta under the olive tree! Gone, too, have the one in three (34%) of the male workforce in Italy who worked in the wine and drinks-related industry. Gone forever the labour-intensive farming industry and cheap and cheerful wine. Good-value wines are now produced in bulk by machinery, and hand-crafted, high-quality wines are expensive; £100 per bottle for Italy’s best wine is no longer rare.

As we have come to expect Italians with their sophisticated clothes, cars, perfumes and leathers, so today we also get sophisticated food and wine. The wine-bottle shapes and labels have panache and sex appeal, and the contents no longer ‘disappoint’. Italy is not just a nation of artists, it now has ‘Grand Cru’ vineyards just the same as at the height of the Roman Empire from 150BC to 150AD.

Congratulations to those of you still reading this introduction on Italian wines - it will make your understanding of our stroll through the beautiful Italian wine regions easier as each issue arrives.

It remains for me to outline the current regulations, styles of wine we will find, and the main types of grapes. Since 1992 the classification of quality is:

• DOCG. - sub-zones in which wine is controlled well enough (and for a number of years) to guarantee its quality.

• DOC - zones where the quality is consistent and tested.

• IGT - 20 large regions where there is a similarity of style using the same grapes.

• Vde T - wine blended from anywhere in Italy that reaches minimum levels of quality control.

Within these rules, Italy makes a bewildering choice of styles: Fizzy is frizzante, sparkling is spumante; superiore and riserva represent ‘my best effort’, whilst dolce, amabile, and abbocano are all degrees of sweetness. Liquoroso wines are fortified, whilst novello wines are young. Amarone, Reccioto and Passito are specialist techniques to make truly great individual wines.

Despite there being over 370 quality-approved grapes, most of the wines we drink come from a dozen much-loved grape varietals:

Reds: Sangiovese, Barbera, Nebbiolo, Corvina, Canaiolo, Refosco, Nero D'Avola

Whites: Moscato, Malvasia, Trebbiano, Verdicchio, Garganega, Cataratto

Remember, Italy has been growing classic French and German grapes for nearly 200 years, so you will come across very successful wines made with Merlot, Cabernet, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Bianco and Pinot Grigio, whilst Pinot Noir is becoming more popular. In the north, Riesling and Traminer (Gewürztraminer) make superb light whites.

The exciting aspect of Italian fine wines is how they match their regional gourmet food. I was taught as a young man how wine is to be drunk slowly and savoured and the bouquet inhaled. Italians have a wonderful phrase, vini da meditazione - wines for meditation - wines to inspire poetry, wines to compose great operas or sublime music. Italians treat great wine as a work of art, and so they produce legendary winemakers.

If you are ever unsure as to which Italian wine to choose, choose a great name. The Italian wine-lover rolls their names off his tongue as if they are his personal friends. We will come across Frescobaldi, Antinori, Gaia, Lungarotti, Zeni, Cesare, Tedeschi, Banfi, and Rivella as we stroll through Italy from north to south over the next issues of italy...

‘At table you never grow old sipping good wine with your friends...’ (Luigi Veronelli)

See you in Piemonte in the next article of the series - Ciao!

To read the other artiles in this series please visit:

1. Vino in Veritas - Italian Wines
2.Vino in Veritas II - Piedmont and Northwest Italy
3.Vino in Veritas III - Il Centro
4.Vino in Verita IV - Il sud - the south and islands