Confusing Italy

Italian wines can be confusing. But they don’t have to be.

One way to help you understand wines from Italy is to break the country down into its smaller regions, of which there are 20; 2 Islands, and 18 on the peninsula.

From there it is helpful to dig into the sub-regions of these, of which there are many.

For example, many people are familiar with Chianti, a sub-region of Tuscany.

Chianti is further divided into smaller regions, each of which are distinct and unique and whose names can be found on the labels of the wines produced within.

Barolo is another wine from the sub-region of the same name but it is from the region of Piedmont. Barolo is further divided into smaller villages and vineyards called ‘crus’.

Amarone, as another example, is a wine from the Valpolicella sub-region in Veneto.

Like many “Old World” wines, grape names on the label are not that common. This can further confuse things in Italy, even if there is a grape name on it. Why? Because many of the grapes grown in Italy are not grown anywhere else so the name of the grape may not be recognized as a grape after all.

Coralin, tazzelenghe or cagnulari may be familiar to some, but not many. Yet these grapes make exciting wines from the regions in which they are grown.

Italy is not the only country that has a host of indigenous grapes, but it has more than any other country in the world, and it can be challenging to find wines made from these grapes. Take, for example, the trebbiano grape. Maybe you have learned about it as a single grape variety, but in fact it is actually a group of grapes, meaning that there are many trebbiano “something-or-other”, but they have no genetic connection. Grapes with the same name are called, simply, “groups”.

The current thinking is that trebbiano abruzzese and trebbiano spoletino are the only two with probable genetic ties whose homes are in the Abruzzo and Umbria regions, respectively.

Italy’s most planted white grape, and seventh in the world, is trebbiano toscano which, goes by ugi blanc in France, where it is the base grape for Brandy. Yet this trebbiano has no genetic link to either abruzzese or spoletino.

This doesn’t help make sense of the confusion surrounding Italian wines for the average consumer. But it does make it endlessly fascinating to learn about the many native grapes, their genetic ties to one and other, and if you’re lucky enough to find some samples, how they actually taste.

There is so much more to Italy than pinot grigio, Prosecco, Barolo, Chianti, Amarone and the like. Once you unlace the boot you will find a treasure of history, wines and unique flavours that are uniquely, and characteristically, Italian.