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Central and Southern Italy

Table of Contents
  1. Tuscany (Toscana)
  2. Umbria
  3. Marches (Marche)
  4. Abruzzo
  5. Latium (Lazio)
  6. Molise
  7. Campania
  8. Apulia (Puglia)
  9. Basilicata
  10. Calabria
  11. Siciliy (Sicilia)
  12. Sardinia (Sardegna)
  13. Review Quizzes

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Tuscany (Toscana)

On the Tyrrhenian Coast of Italy, the region of Tuscany has become a byword for Italian culture. A famous artistic legacy and rich history match the natural beauty of the Tuscan countryside, unfolding in waves of golden and green hills that ebb and flow between the Apennine Mountains and the sea.



Wine is deeply embedded in Tuscany’s cultural heritage—the famous medieval Florentine poet Dante Alighieri praised the Vernaccia of San Gimignano, and legislation delimiting the Chianti zone dates to 1716. The first DOC and DOCG zones to be authorized in Italy were Tuscan. Wine and commercial agriculture are big business in Tuscany, and the hills are a patchwork of olive tree groves, vineyards, and wheat fields—a natural evolution of the “promiscuous” agriculture that ancient Romans practiced, wherein these three staple crops of Tuscany were planted side by side in the same fields. In the past, Chianti was synonymous with Italian wine—and a reminder, not unfairly, of its troubled quality. Historically bottled in a fiasco due to the inferior quality of Italian glass, the squat, straw-covered Chianti bottles came to epitomize the rustic, cheap nature of Italian wine in the late 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Tuscany’s winemakers have responded with a surge in quality over the last quarter century, slashing vineyard yields and building on the successes of the “Super-Tuscan” trailblazers Marquis Mario Rocchetta, who released the first commercial vintage of Sassicaia in 1968, and his nephew Piero Antinori, whose Tignanello bottling soon followed. While the benchmark for quality has been raised significantly, it may be at the expense of typicity—the Bordeaux grapes and model of winemaking extend great influence over the modern Tuscan
Comments
Parents

  • The following text appears in the section on Aglianico del Vulture above: ‘For DOC wines, one year of aging is mandated. The wines may be dry (acsiutto) or off-dry (amabile) and still or spumante, although dry, still interpretations represent the DOC’s most serious wines.’ First a simple typo, ‘acsiutto‘ should read ‘asciutto’. Beyond that, however, I find myself quite confused. Given the text that precedes this quote, I would assume that these statements apply to the Aglianico del Vulture DOC. But, the Compendium page for the Aglianico del Vulture DOC denotes the maximum residual sugar for rosso wines to be 10 g/l and the Disciplinare di Produzione expands on this describing the characteristics of rosso wines to be ‘dal secco all'abboccato, giustamente tannico e sapido, per l'abboccato il contenuto zuccherino non deve superare i 10 g per litro’. The EU’s Commission Regulation (EC) No 607/2009 would indicate that wines characterized as abboccato are distinct from those characterized as amabile, as the range of residual sugar for amabile begins where that of abboccato ends. Furthermore, the Compendium page for the Aglianico del Vulture DOC doesn’t list a mandated year of aging, but a restriction on the release date to September 1 of the year after harvest–which given the text preceding the quote of late harvest dates for Aglianico, would likely translate to less than one year. Which makes me think that perhaps these statements are not supposed to be in regards to the Aglianico del Vulture DOC? I am truly flummoxed!

Comment

  • The following text appears in the section on Aglianico del Vulture above: ‘For DOC wines, one year of aging is mandated. The wines may be dry (acsiutto) or off-dry (amabile) and still or spumante, although dry, still interpretations represent the DOC’s most serious wines.’ First a simple typo, ‘acsiutto‘ should read ‘asciutto’. Beyond that, however, I find myself quite confused. Given the text that precedes this quote, I would assume that these statements apply to the Aglianico del Vulture DOC. But, the Compendium page for the Aglianico del Vulture DOC denotes the maximum residual sugar for rosso wines to be 10 g/l and the Disciplinare di Produzione expands on this describing the characteristics of rosso wines to be ‘dal secco all'abboccato, giustamente tannico e sapido, per l'abboccato il contenuto zuccherino non deve superare i 10 g per litro’. The EU’s Commission Regulation (EC) No 607/2009 would indicate that wines characterized as abboccato are distinct from those characterized as amabile, as the range of residual sugar for amabile begins where that of abboccato ends. Furthermore, the Compendium page for the Aglianico del Vulture DOC doesn’t list a mandated year of aging, but a restriction on the release date to September 1 of the year after harvest–which given the text preceding the quote of late harvest dates for Aglianico, would likely translate to less than one year. Which makes me think that perhaps these statements are not supposed to be in regards to the Aglianico del Vulture DOC? I am truly flummoxed!

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