Italy, known for its chic, stylish elegance is the largest producer and exporter of wine and believe it or not, little Sicily alone produces more wine than Australia. And, with 3000 grape varieties in the world, Italy is home to over 1000 of them, so amazing that some of the growers are not sure what they have! This diversity of grapes and climate north to south offers a vast range of wines with more than 900 different styles from over 240 locations and Chianti alone has over 5,000 growers.
If you thought that their grapes and regions were confusing then you really don’t want to get into the vintages too much. Vintages, although important should not be the most significant factor in a wine, the producer is by far more crucial, a bad producer can make a bad wine in a good vintage and a good producer can make an excellent wine in an average vintage.
‘Oh no’ I can hear you saying, with all this choice it’s difficult to get into Italian wine unless you are a fanatic. Well, the Italians have thought of this and over the last number of years winemakers have been trying very hard to produce ranges wine that are more approachable and easier to drink, with or without food, as well as adopting more of a ‘New World’ trend if you like, with grape varieties are on the label, such as Pinot Grigio. However, this doesn’t mean that the classics have gone……..no, no, no, this just encourages us to take another look at their wines and it must be working as over the last 20 years their market share has gone up from 2.5 billion to 9 billion – Amazing!
I think sometimes we just forget what Italy has to offer in terms of wine, they have creativity and individuality and world of wine just waiting to be explored.
Coming soon…… another of our Wine Member Italian tastings.
Last updated: December 02, 2007