I’ve been writing my blog for many years. I write about all kinds of topics, including enjoying wine, holidays, varietals and wine styles, wine and food, wine and health and wine regions. Today, I decided to go back and look at some of my old blog articles on Italy.
Old Blog Articles on Italy
In 2014, I wrote a series of articles about Italy’s wine regions, including:
- Wines of Friuli-Venezia Giulia – Italy’s most northeastern wine region, it shares borders with Austria, Slovenia and Venice. Karen MacNeil of The Wine Bible says that Tre Venezie is known for making “Italy’s most stylish, highest quality white wines, including some of the raciest sparkling wines,…[along with] a slew of fascinating reds.”
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Trentino-Alto Adige Wines – In this article, I highlighted Nosiola and Lagrein. Nosiola is a light-bodied, aromatic white wine with a hint of hazelnuts and balancing notes include stone fruits (peach, apricot) and citrus. Lagrein is a full-bodied red wine with cherry and berry notes that is somehow related to Pinot Noir and Syrah. For this wine, it is not unusual to find wine labels in both German and Italian.
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Tuscan Wines – Here, the focus was Vernaccia, a famous white wine (the first Italian wine to be awarded the coveted DOC status) and Abrusco, an almost extinct wine that two Tuscan wineries are trying to bring back to life.
- Wines from Umbria – Orvieto is the name of an ancient city of Umbria, and it’s also the name of Umbria’s best-known white wine. The Orvieto wine is a crisp, peachy white made primarily from the Trebbiano and Grechetto grapes. Another important grape from this region is Sagrantino, one of the most tannic and robust reds in production, and also known as Montefalco.
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Piemonte Wines – Arneis is a white wine that historically was used as a blending grape to soften highly tannic red Nebbiolo-based wines. When this practice stopped, Arneis had a tough time. Arneis means “rascal” in a particular Piedmont dialect. It’s not an easy grape to grow. But thankfully, this wonderful wine, which is crisp and floral, and has a lot of pear and apricot notes, is making a comeback. Barbera, on the other hand, is the second most grown red grape in Italy. very importantly, it is a food wine, not a wine that you sip for the sake of sipping 🙂
- Lombardy Wines – Lombardy’s Franciacorta is a sparkling wine considered by many to be on par with French Champagne. Wow! I need to try some. On the red front, Lombardy is known for Rossola Nera from Valtellina, which is used most notably in Valtellina, where it is often blended with its more famous parent, Nebbiolo.
I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane.
