Wine Press - How To Read An Italian Wine Label
Updated Jan 18, 2021;
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This week, I thought I would keep the ball rolling by focusing on Italian wines.
Like France, many winemakers in Italy sure don’t make it easy to understand what type of wine is in the bottle.
Often, there’s nothing on the label about what types of grapes were used to make Italian wines.
Instead, like many French winemakers, Italian labels have more to do with where the wine comes from rather than information about the grapes. Then again, sometimes not.
To be honest, I am still sometimes confused by certain wine labels from Italy. That might be because there seems to be so many tiny subregions within regions in Italy.
There’s an argument that Christmas Day dinner is no time to bring out the big guns. Some wines deserve quiet contemplation or at least a setting in which they can shine.
Years or even centuries have gone into crafting firstly the vineyards and vines themselves, and then the winemaking expertise to transmute those grapes into a substance of great beauty. Is it fair to have the resulting wine shouted over literally and metaphorically as crackers are pulled, family politics play out and big ballsy flavours are layered on one another? This, however, is 2020, and we’ve enough rules to be following.