Vino in veritas - Exploring Italian Wines
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.
