Italy is home to the world’s most extensive array of winegrapes—around a thousand varieties! Sicily alone boasts around 75. Wine has been made from Italy’s indigenous winegrapes since the 2nd century BC. When the Greeks planted their native grapes in southern Italy, known at the time as Magna Graecia, they found that some of their varieties actually performed better in southern Italy than in their native Greece. Malvasia and what came to be known as Greco are notable examples.
Distinguished Italian wines did not appear on the international market much before the last couple of decades of the 20th century. Very few were classified in the manner of the French classification of 1855. Wine was largely considered food, not art, by the Italians.
A national style that was different from other models, based on native varieties, evolved in Italy. Most of the Italian wines prior to the 1980s would be comfortably described as “rustic,” and few were considered worthy of export. The main exceptions were Chianti, Brunello, Vino Nobile, Barolo, Barbaresco, and the light Venetian reds, Valpolicello and Bardolino.
In 1966 the Italian government instituted the DOCG regulations that placed severe restrictions on what were considered Italy’s finest wines and are blind-tasted regularly to insure their quality. It took the government 14 years to find the first candidate for this exalted classification: Brunello di Monalcino. Today there are only 37 DOCG wines in all of Italy.
The California Influence on Italian Wine Style
While the French might be credited with raising the quality of wine from its own native grapes to the highest levels, it was California that rocked the boat and laid the foundation for a global wine industry.
California, having no native winegrapes, experimented with European varieties since the 1850s. It took a hundred years and extensive research by professors at UC Berkeley and UC Davis before California-grown Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir bested the finest of France in blind tastings. Those historic tasting events of 1976 and 1979 showed the world in a dramatic way that native grapes might perform as well or even better in non-native regions. The Italians were quick to take notice.
The Italian Response to California Wine
Italian vintners, led by Piero Antinori in Chianti, tried their luck with international, non-native varieties and introduced a proprietary red wine in 1982. Antinori called it Tignanello. The rest of the world called it a “super-Tuscan.” It was the first of many similar efforts and the Italian government disallowed the use of any of its classified pedigrees. It was officially a Vino di Tavolo—the lowest official export classification.
Measures in southern Italy were even more restrictive. The government declared that vineyard acreage in Calabria could not be expanded to address the growing market for Italian wine. This action was taken to protect Calabria’s lemon and tomato industry. Nevertheless, today there is a robust export wine trade and, with the exception of pedigreed DOC and DOCG wines, price is little indication of quality.
Italian whites are achieving unprecedented quality levels, particularly in the case of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Friulano, Fiano d’Avellino, and Vermentino. Except for Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello, and some Chianti Classicos, Italian red wines display a remarkably consistent national style: tart, dry, rich, and lower in alcohol than most international models.
Where Italian Wines Shine
Drunk alone, the Italian-styled wines may not compete with wines made in the international style, that is, fruit-forward, faintly sweet, mouth-filling, dense, richly-textured, and high in alcohol. But when paired with food courses, the Italian style shines. It’s like two pieces of a jig-saw puzzle—food and wine— that match perfectly, revealing the potential of both and providing a pleasing result greater than the sum of its component parts.
