Central Italy comprises the heart of the Italian Peninsula, both geographically and historically. Lazio, which houses the capital at Rome, roughly corresponds to the ancient Roman city, while Tuscany equates generally to the older Etruria. Millennia later, Tuscany grew to become a major economic power in Italy, first as the Republics of Florence and Siena and later as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Before the Risorgimento, much of the rest of centraI Italy was made up of the Papal States, under direct rule of the pope and the Vatican. This guide will consider five regions as central Italy: Tuscany, Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, the Marche, and Lazio.
Central Italy begins south of the Po River basin, and, like much of the country, is defined by the Apennine Mountains at its center. Its climate is varied by not only latitude but, importantly, elevation, with many of the top wines coming from higher sites. With Tuscany, central Italy serves as a powerful driver of the Italian wine industry, home to many of the country’s largest and oldest winemaking families, such as the Antinoris and the Frescobaldis. The initial sparks of Italy’s 20th-century winemaking revolution were lit here, with the first bottling of Sassicaia in 1968 and the Super Tuscans that followed.
Today, central Italy is no less dynamic. Italy’s most planted grape variety, Sangiovese, achieves its finest expressions in Chianti Classico and Montalcino. Nearby, in Umbria, Sagrantino has been reimagined for the production of dry red wines. Further north, Emilia-Romagna cultivates the best-known appellations worldwide for sparkling red wine with its various Lambruscos. White wine, too, finds prominence in central Italy, notably in the bottlings of Orvieto, the Malvasia blends of Lazio, and the Verdicchio wines of the Marche. In addition, winegrowers throughout central Italy continue
Just reading through and looking at Orvieto Classico and the geology there. The guide claims that tufa soils predominate and is similar to Vouvray, however, Vouvray is tuffeau, which is a local Loire term for a foraminifera heavy limestone chalk whereas tufa is a cool freshwater deposited limestone. What seems to be the soil in Orvieto is volcanic and pyroclastic in origin, which means it's a tuff. The Consorzio says the soils are tuffaceous meaning the origin rock has between 25% and 75% volcanic ash. Alex Maltman talks about the etymology and why there's extensive confusion around the terms in his book.
Hey, Peter! The line is as follows.
"Tufa soils, similar to those found in Vouvray, cover the region, and the Classico subzone has a particularly high tufaceous concentration"
Most vineyards in the DOC sit around 150-250 meters on soils from an ancient seabed that occupied the area before the emergence of the Apennines. Here we have tufaceous soil that is notably high in calcium carbonate content. Some sites here have CaCO₃ content that can exceed 40%. The town of Orvieto itself sits on Tuff, which is at higher elevations within the region. These volcanic areas come from the Vulsini eruption in the Pleistocene.