Italian Red Grapes – The Guide
The Vineria all’Amarone Grape Encyclopaedia Part Two
If you’ve read Part One (and if not, what are you waiting for?), you’ll know that back in the mists of ancient time sweet white wines were considered the most important, the most prestigious, the most expensive, the wine that really said ‘hello world, I’m really somebody’.
Today, however, the situation is different. True, sweet whites like Chateau d’Yquem can still command vertigo-inducing prices, and dry whites like the best of Mosel Riesling have their (justifiably) devoted fanbases, but in general at the very top of the wine world the field has been ceded to the reds. Everywhere you look – Romanée-Conti in Burgundy, Screaming Eagle in Napa, Penfolds Grange in Barossa – a region’s cachet will be carried by the very best it has to offer on the red side of things. The words ‘fine wine’ conjure in the popular imagination either Champagne or something deep, purplish, perhaps a little austere and forbidding.
But here’s the thing: red wine is also considered a crowd-pleaser. Less controversial than white wine genres tend to be (oak?? Savvy B???) and often more obviously fruit-forward, the cheerful bottle of red has an association of a kind of democratic indulgence, of opulence for the people. Generous, warmhearted reds have enlivened many a barbecue, a grigliata, a Sunday afternoon picnic.
And where does Italy fit into this? Unsurprisingly, the Boot is steeped in the stuff up to the knee, with all kinds of friendly, approachable reds available to the honest drinker. But the country has also staked its reputation on wines of astonishing quality, ambition, and perhaps above all variety. And this variety is due to the incredible diversity of terroirs, climates, soils, and so on, but it also must be admitted that the dizzying array of grape varieties is a major contributor, with every region boasting not just one signature variety but, apparently, several, varieties which with the passing of the years seem to multiplying in number and exploding in seriousness, respect, rewards for the persistent winemaker.
And so here’s our guide to them, the great red (technically black) grapes of Italy. We’ll cover the major ones as well as a few hidden gems and secret treasures along the way (and bear in mind that most of these can be found in our bar and shop!).
The North
Barbera – the lightest of the major red grapes of Piedmont, or at least the lightest-feeling. Barbera is a relatively easygoing vine that produces bright, lucid wines with modest tannins and positively singing with acidity, qualities that have occasionally caused it to be produced rather carelessly, as a thirstquencher not especially worthy of care and attention in the vineyard.
This perception has changed, however: first by a school of thought that puts more emphasis on small-barrel ageing to round out that acidity and add body and structure; second, by the recent trend away from oakbombs and towards an appreciation for wines that retain a certain natural zip and zang (the traditional winemaking style, when aiming for quality at any rate, would also always utilise an extra-long maceration period to leach out as much tannin as possible).
The division of this style is often thought to be typical of of the two best-known zones for making this wine, with Barbera d’Alba DOC apparently deeper and darker while Barbera d’Asti DOC gives more zing and leggerezza. The reality is that while there’s a touch of truth to this, in the end it all comes down to the winemaking choices involved, with barbera’s impressionability leaving the producer a lot of options to choose from.
In general, barbera is fresh, pleasing, and distinctly cherryish. It does make excellent young drinking, of course, but in spite of its popular image as a simple young wine it can, in fact, age phenomenally well, in the main due to that trademark low pH.
Tldr: fresh, gleaming, tingling red of growing seriousness and ageability.
Corvina – more properly corvina veronese, this is the star grape of the Valpolicella (or perhaps its fairer to say the co-star – on which more below). As a result, for us here it’s basically our hero, and certainly the protagonist of the wine for which we’re named – Amarone della Valpolicella.
Corvina grapes tend to be small and ripen at a usefully medium sort of speed, giving the grower a great deal of choice over the maturity of the fruit and their resulting flavours. They tend to be rather low in colour and tannins, something they rather make up for in sugar and, crucially, acidity. Indeed, left to ripen on the vine these berries can achieve a really remarkable combination of sweetness and freshness – which is perfect preparation for what comes next.
Because, while much excellent wine is made with normal vinification methods, corvina is also peculiarly adapted for the great local trick of the Valpolicella – the technique known as appassimento. This involves drying the grapes typically to about 30-40% water loss, the main effect of which is to concentrate the sugars in the must even further. Traditionally, this was fermented to a medium wine-strength (12.5-13.5% alcohol) before being racked off the yeast to leave a good amount of sugars within, to make a dessert wine called Recioto – but these days it the dry wine technique is better known, where the juice is fermented fully to make wines of astonishing power (up to 17.5%!). And it’s this that we call the Amarone della Valpolicella.
Corvina’s natural freshness is crucial here. All that alcohol could come out wrong in that way unbalanced over-the-top wines can, those residual bitter aromas of vodka and industrial solvent. The secret of Amarone, however, is that the acidity holds it together, as well as a little extra tannin from the polyphenolic changes wrought by the appassimento process, as well as helping it age for years and years.
Amarone – indeed any wine with ‘Valpolicella’ on the label – as always a blended wine, with maximum 95% allowed under DOC and DOCG regulations (which would be enough to call it monovarietal under other regulatory systems…wine is confusing). More and more, however, wineries are producing true 100% corvina expressions under the Rosso Veronese IGT, some of which use some appassimento, some of which don’t. It’s also the key grape in the Bardolino DOC, both for its zippy reds (sort of like Valpolicella’s lighter cousin) and its hallmark ‘Chiaretto’ rosé style, as refreshing a late-spring aperitivo as any provençal offering. Indeed, its lightish tannins and low pH have inspired a few intrepid pioneers to make blanc de noirs fizz from it! Wherever you look, it seems that corvina is a grape whose time has come.
Tldr: fresh, well-drying grape that can produce anything from the light and crisp to the intensely weighty and brooding; the legendary grape of Amarone.
Corvinone – as the name pretty much gives away, a varietal that in appearance and in flavours is similar enough to corvina to have been considered some sort of version of it, perhaps a clone, perhaps an offshoot. In reality genetic tests have shown the grape to be quite separate from its famous adopted older brother, though given their similarities they continue to be thought of as oenologically categorisable.
Under Valpolicella regulations, corvinone can substitute up to 50% of corvina in any given blend – so, if ‘corvina’ is given as making up 80% of a Valpolicella DOC wine, 40% of the overall assemblage can in fact be corvinone; similarly, if a technical sheet says that the wine is 90% ‘corvina and corvinone’, that means that corvinone comprises maximum 45% of the total blend. It’s a bit convoluted, but hey, it seems to work!
Corvinone is a bit bigger than corvina, a bit more loosely bunched, and a bit less flavour-dense. It is just as high in acidity, however, and just as ideal for the appassimento process, rendering it an extremely useful addition to any given blend. It’s also useful in the Valpolicella and Bardolino DOCs, considered a bit more flavourful than the other regional blending grapes.
Tldr: confusingly unrelated corvina complementer.
Croatina – also known as bonarda dell’Oltrepò Pavese, after the Lombard region where it perhaps reaches its apogee, though it is also growing in popularity in Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, and the Veneto.
The name suggests an origin in Croatia, but plantings in Friuli are negligible, while in Veneto its only real role is as a supplement to the Amarone blend. Elsewhere, however – particularly in the aforementioned Lombard regions, but also in (for instance) the Piedmontese Colli Tortonesi – it is prized as a varietal wine, of relatively smooth and easy mouthfeel and the hint of a tannic crunch, and whose violet aromas can achieve real intensity.
Tldr: increasingly interesting habitual-blender, lightish and perfumed with a touch of tannin.
Dolcetto – low-acidity, early-ripening Piedmontese variety, sometimes (erroneously!) thought of as a bit of a table wine, but more and more become a favourite both at home and abroad as its particular strengths are becoming better and better known to the consumer. Dolcetto makes wines that are easy to love, mouthfilling and plummy, though the same relative lack of tannin and acidity that makes them such good drinking young rather puts a spanner in the works of their ageability.
Nevertheless, when carefully made, a Dolcetto d’Alba can be layered as well as delicious, a touch smoky and dense without being chewy. The wines of the Diano area of Alba can be a bit fresher, and the very hard-to-find Dolcetto di Dogliani DOCG can develop complexity from time spent in bottle. But it is the Dolcetto d’Alba that remains the best known, a sort of Piedmontese equivalent of merlot, whose flattering fruit and eagerness to please liven up many a summer table. You can also find generally light, easygoing examples from Liguria, often under the name ‘ormeasco’.
Tldr: least-heralded but easiest-to-drink of Piedmont’s Big Three.
Freisa – strange, divisive, ancient, a real one-of-a-kind, probably among Piedmont’s most unusual (and definitely rarest) grape varieties. It’s traditional style is probably as close as you get in Italy to red vinho verde, distinctly light and lignous with a certain astringency and – most importantly – somewhat sparkling. More recently, however, it’s become more the practice to vinify it as a still wine, and it is in this guise that it has become better known.
Freisa is related to nebbiolo and it shows, as it makes wines of deceptive paleness, deceptive because of the remarkable grip and drag of their tannic profiles – which, when combined with the remarkable acidity and (usually) touch of residual sugar, produces the unusual sour and bitter strawberries for which the grape is so well known. Not everybody loves this unusual mix of flavours, but to those who do, nothing else can quite scratch the same itch. Look for Freisa d’Asti, Langhe Freisa, Freisa di Chieri, and Monferrato Freisa DOCs for varietal or near-varietal examples.
Tldr: crowd-splitting fragrant red with claws.
Grignolino – if freisa is nebbiolo’s strange brother, grignolino is like its old uncle that lives in an old castle, hoarding ancient wealth. Like those other two Piedmontese varieties, the real character of grignolino lies in the contrast between its pale colour and its high tannins – the difference here, however, is that the colour is super light, almost orange, but the wine is astonishingly tannic, not least because of the great density of its pips (the word ‘grignole’ is a Piedmontese dialect word for ‘pips’). Combine this with really quite extreme acidity and you have a wine that perhaps sounds a bit unbalanced, if not unhinged.
The truth is, however, that grignolino – especially under the Grignolino d’Asti and Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese DOC labels – has for centuries been noted as rather a friendly sort of wine, not at all singled out for excessive dryness or sourness. Its relative lack of alcohol is here a benefit in fact, as despite missing out on that glycerol sweetness it at least avoids getting boozily bitter, and its rather gentle, flirtatious fruits back up the structuring elements rather pleasingly. Grignolino is a bit rare to find these days but is perhaps due a comeback, a unique and ancient nebbiolo alternative that deserves fresh attention.
Tldr: apparently extreme but actually quite pleasant red wine grape, not for the tanninphobic.
Lagrein – a red in a land of whites, finicky, difficult lagrein nevertheless has all the tools to keep its burgeoning reputation on the rise. One of Trentino-Alto Adige’s most distinctive homegrown varieties, it has the hallmark freshness of its paler neighbours but is by no other indications a ‘cool climate red’, being normally at least medium if not full-bodied, with tannins of genuine chewiness that make it a particularly fine match with with the rustic, carnivorous cuisine of the region.
To qualify for DOC regulations Lagrein doesn’t have to be grown in any part of Alto Adige (or Sudtirol), but the factors of altitude and soil make the area south of Bolzano – also known as Bozen – ideal for its cultivation. On the former, while a bit of elevation is certainly useful for retaining acidity, too much cold and this grape won’t ripen; on the latter, lagrein particularly thrives in volcanic, granitic soils rich in porphyry, which are especially present in areas such as Lago di Caldaro.
In recent years there’s been an especial attention on limiting maceration periods and using a bit more oak in order to curb those elbowy tannins. Its trademark bite, however, is still highly prized, and producers such as Elena Walch have showed that this most mountainous of varieties can produce wines that brood, bruise, but that also belie their tough architecture, with subtle brambly fruit and pleasing perfume. A real rising star.
Tldr: Sudtirolese gem, producing tough-yet-rewarding big reds to complement the Alpine kitchen.
Marzemino – ‘Versa il vino! Eccelente marzemino!’ (‘Pour the wine! Excellent marzemino!’). Thus Don Giovanni sings in Mozart’s opera during his final act feast, just before his hard-headed old friend comes along to drag him downstairs for a rather long time-out. The librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, was originally Venetian, and so would’ve naturally known something about this grape, associated with the whole of the ex-Serenissima northeast but especially with the area of Trentino.
Marzemino is typically rather late-ripening, and as a result can be a little tough in cool years. Enough hang-time on the vine however, and that tartness will become a herbal, grassy, even slightly green-peppery thing, enough acidic freshness and tannic crunch to balance its relatively medium-body, and carrying a quite refreshing berryish fruit vibe with it. Trentino is by far the best-known exponent of dry table varietal marzemino; however, perhaps the most remarkable wines are made over the body in Veneto, where in the heart of Prosecco country the Colli di Conegliano Refrontolo dessert wines, made in the passito method like Recioto, must be virtually monovarietal (minimum 95%) marzemino under the DOCG regulations.
Tldr: historic northeast variety, known for croquant dry wines and hauntingly perfumed desserters.
Molinara – an official permitted variety of the various Valpolicella DOCs, albeit one somewhat in decline over the decades, though recent interest in indigenous varieties and unique regional blends have led to something of a revival. Molinara doesn’t produce wine of the deepest, most obvious fruit flavours, nor of great alcohol, nor of overmuch tannin – what it provides is acidity, having a real tangy freshness that can be crucial to both the drinkability and ageability of the top reds of the area, including Amarone della Valpolicella.
Though plantings are down these days, as the more power-driven styles dominated the last couple of decades in this region, there’s still an important place for molinara in the Valpolicella landscape. If vinified on its own (and it almost never is) it tends to produce light, solid pink wines of a definite raspberryish flavour, quite prone to quick oxidation and not, therefore, long-lived- It’s also prevalent in Bardolino, where its zinginess makes it ideal for rosés (blends with merlot, where it provides the crispness to its partner’s mellow damsons, are also known).
Tldr: light, crisp, traditional partner in the Valpolicella and Bardolino blends.
Nebbiolo – the king of Piedmont, its greatest claim to fame, and indeed a strong candidate for being the greatest grape in Italy fullstop. And yet this is no tyrant, no dominating strongman of the grape world – instead, nebbiolo is complicated, diffident, ‘finicky’ to use Jancis Robinson’s word, demanding to cultivate and difficult to vinify in a way which will coax out the best of it.
And yet – the best of it is so beguiling, so particular, so unusual, so incredibly rewarding, that nebbiolo is one of those Italian grapes whose greatness has never really been contested, and whose top examples command the same respect (and prices!) as the best pinot noirs or cabernet sauvignons.
The first challenge becomes evident when you look at the name. ‘Nebbiolo’ surely derives from the Italian word ‘nebbia’, meaning ‘fog’, itself surely a reference to the famous dreamy mists that envelop the hills of Alba and the Langhe, and you might deduce from this that nebbiolo is a grape that likes the fog. Unfortunately this is rather extravagantly not the case, as one of the defining features of nebbiolo is how much sunshine it needs, how difficult it is to ripen, and how difficult it can be as a wine if even slightly under-mature.
However, though it is a tricky late-ripener, that doesn’t make nebbiolo a vine lacking in vigour – if anything it is too vigorous, early-budding and profusely-foliating, a vine that demands really quite extraordinary attention in the vineyard. Early-budding, late-ripening, overly vigorous and sensitive to excess cold, excess heat, excess fog and (apparently) not enough fog – this is no easy vine.
So why persist? Because this is the grape responsible for one of the great wines of Italy, indeed of the world – Barolo. It’s in the wine zone centered on the beautiful eponymous village in the province of Cuneo that many would say nebbiolo reaches its apogee. This is a strange wine – noticeably light in colour, genuinely red, even tending towards the brick-red associated with a weighty rosé with age, and it has the zippy, almost sour acidity to match; yet this colour belies the fact that this wine is gloriously, recklessly tannic, wine that in its most traditional form could take as much as a decade in bottle to get ready for drinking, and which, happily, was born for ageing well. And the flavours are so worth the wait – that heft and freshness allying underlying full-bodied fruit to incredible minerality and perfume in the aromas, of which tar and roses are considered the absolute classic calling-cards.
The cantankerous nature of this wine, however, was about fifty years ago to prove flint to the spark of controversy. Dissatisfied with the lower commercial returns necessitated by such a slow, languorous approach to drinkability, a group of young winemakers – led by the now-legendary Elio Altare – experimented with a number of ways to make their wines ready to go at a much younger age, rounder, fruitier, more purple than fuchsia or rhubarb. The cornerstone of the style pursued by the ‘Barolo Boys’ (as they, incredibly, became known) was the use of barriques – small barrels of impactful French or American oak – rather than the large botti of neutral Slavonian oak typically used in much Italian wine. This was controversial with traditionalists, and the stormclouds of war gathered over Piedmont. A truce now holds as everyone goes down their own path without acrimony, but the legacy of the two styles of Barolo persists to this day.
But it’s not all about Barolo! Piedmont at large is dedicated to nebbiolo, with other zones emphasising different aspects of this extraordinary grape. Barbaresco pushes the perfume element to extremes with its almost racy delicacy; Ghemme by contrast pulls no punches, its earthy wines characterised by gameyness and touches like leather; Gattinara tends to come out somewhat lower in alcohol, but can be longer-lived even than Barolo, developing complexity for decades in the cellar.
And it’s not even all about Piedmont, as this most challenging of grapes finds many a champion across its mountainous home turf. In Valle d’Aosta, where it rejoices in the name ‘picotendro’, it produces noticeably pale, zappy, cool-climate wines that truly justify comparisons with the region’s pinot noir; meanwhile in the Valtellina area of Lombardy, whose dialect moniker for the vine is the impossibly romantic ‘chiavennasca’, similarly Alpine wines are produced with normal vinification, while a completely unique expression called ‘Sfursat’ is also made with appassimento technique – effectively, a nebbiolo equivalent of Amarone!
Tldr: absolute star variety behind Barolo, Barbaresco and other celebrated names, famous for its astonishing combination of lightness and body, tannin and acidity, fruit and perfume.
Oseleta – of all the blending grapes of Valpolicella – that’s to say the support acts to corvina – one of the rarest and yet almost certainly the most interesting. Oseleta’s decline was due less to its inherent qualities than to its trickiness of cultivation – low-yielding, mould-prone, though relatively resistant to disease in general. Decades of decline, however, were reversed by Valpo stars Masi, who in around 1980 rediscovered the vine, identified it, recognised its particular organoleptic properties and began devoting time and effort to its cultivation.
And it has to be said that this farsightedness has been rewarded. Oseleta is remarkable, something of an everything-grape. It has body, it has colour, it has some tannic grip but also a noticeable freshness, it has fruit and it has some savouriness – and perhaps above all it has perfume, a remarkable floral quality that really makes it stand out even in the busy vineyards of Valpolicella. These days it contributes to quite a few DOC and DOCG blends, and a few enterprising producers (such as Zýmē and Masi themselves) are even making monovarietal oseleta wines with pretty stunning success.
Tldr: still ultrarare but increasingly head-turning autochthonous Valpolicella variety, medium to full with powerful yet subtle aromas.
Petit rouge – Valle d’Aosta’s most obviously native variety, and probably its best as well, a grape that ripens late but well in these bracing Alpine climes, and which can reach remarkable alcoholic levels and phenolic ripeness, and which can be said to form the backbone of the wines of this region.
The berries are rather round and small (hence the name, which in local dialect is rendered pitchou rodzo). Monovarietal wines will tend to be rather full and tannic, remarkably low in acidity given the altitude of the vineyards, the highest in Europe. Aromatically the wine is undeniably winey, but fragrant too, with some fresh herbal characteristics. It is present in many Valle d’Aosta regional red styles, but is perhaps best represented in the miniscule Enfer d’Arvier subzone where it must make up at least 85% of the wine.
Tldr: dense and velvety Valle d’Aosta specialty of growing international attention.
Pignolo – its name means ‘finicky’ or ‘pedantic’, which probably goes some way to explaining why you may not have ever heard of it. This is not a grape that ripens easily nor yields big, and presents enough problems to growers in its native Friuli to have been ripped out progressively across the 20th century in favour of more obviously-easy vines such as native schioppettino or fashionable merlot.
Nevertheless, the rewards are sufficient that this somewhat benighted grape has started to make a real comeback. It can count legendary critic Jancis Robinson among its many fans, and has been rewarding these believers with some dense yet fresh wines with big fruit, good structure and a genuine affinity for oak spiciness. One to look out for!
Tldr: fresh, fruity and bold Friulian specialty on the comeback trail, with friends in high places.
Raboso – at home in the area along the Piave river north of Treviso, the name of this grape is in fact a Veneto dialect word meaning ‘angry’ – and one unsuspecting sip of a young example might be enough to show why! Medium-to-full bodied and carrying the high acidity which is a hallmark of many an Italian red variety, the most obvious characteristic of raboso is nevertheless its quite remarkable tannins, a real gripper and biter of a grape, which if vinified carelessly can quite overwhelm its alcoholic structure.
Well-made wines will however reward the winemaker with bright fruit and and a tangy, almost tea-like aromatic afterglow, which when combined with those sturdy polyphenols result in a wine that recalls the Madiran of southern France perhaps, or even (if the ripeness levels are impressive) the Sagrantino di Montefalco of Umbria.
Tldr: the Veneto’s (particularly Treviso’s) answer to tannat – tough, rustic, but capable of greatness.
Refosco – or, more properly, refosco dal peduncolo rosso (or ‘refosco of the red stems’) to distinguish it from the wider, somewhat hodgepodge family of refoschi. Though found also in Veneto this really is a Friuli-based vine, particularly in the Colli Orientali, whose near-continental slopes and breezes help retain its trademark acidity.
This is no thin glugger, however. Typically refosco can achieve remarkable body and alcohol and no small amount of fruit. The real organoleptic calling-card though, especially when identifying a refosco of quality – is surely the green herbaceous note it can develop, reminiscent of the peppery pyrazines of cabernets franc and sauvignon. Worth it for whacks of red fruit and pinging freshness.
Tldr: western Friulian full-and-fresh fruitburst with more than an afterthought of grass.
Rondinella – the third of the classic Valpolicella blend (with corvina and molinara – the existence of corvinone being, as we’ve seen, something of a spanner in the works). Rondinella is practically never vinified alone – were it to be so, one would find a rather light wine, with some graceful fragrance and a true lick of acidity, a real rapid pH.
This is one of the reasons it’s such a popular addition to the Valpolicella blend, that acidity being so vital both to the younger, fridgeable classico offerings and the heady magnificence of Amarone. Another reason is the relatively high sugar levels, crucial for appassimento wines if they’re going to contribute body after the drying process. Finally, the undeniable reason that it’s such a usefully productive vine, yielding remarkable amounts of fruit that can be deployed at the service of Valpolicella’s famous reds.
(Interesting aside: a white mutation exists, but in one vineyard alone – and it makes up the majority of Zýmē’s remarkable ‘From Black to White’!)
Tldr: exceptionally useful Valpolicella blender, high in sugar, acidity, and yield.
Rossese – also known as rossese di Dolceacqua, and in France called tibouren, grown along the Italian and French rivieras, from Liguria to Provence, but probably of ancient Greek origin. Relatively little planted, rossese is nevertheless agreed to be the most promising and interesting of all the red grapes for whom Liguria can be called home, with a remarkable capacity for expressing terroir key to the fortunes of any grape hoping to be fashionable in the 21st century.
Rossese is nothing if not aromatic, with a remarkable olfactory profile which flashes across the mind all manner of Mediterranean scrub and wild herbs, thyme and lavender and so on, while on the palate the Ligurian versions tend to offer an unmistakably salty note. An excellent blender with sangiovese in places like Colli di Luni, in Dolceacqua it shines as a varietal wine of remarkable delicacy, fleetness of foot, perfume and zippiness.
Tldr: Franco-Italian coastal variety as fresh and herby as memories of a beloved summer holiday; the most interesting grape particular to Liguria.
Ruché – fascinating specialty of Piedmont, historically important but fallen much into decline, though now showing promising signs of a revival. The word on the street (or rather, the word on the drywall-lined country lane) is that the variety was long-ago imported from Burgundy, but despite its persistence evidence for this theory has been rather thin.
What’s not thin is the wine, thankfully. In its homelands, particularly in the area of Castagnole Monferrato, fully-ripe ruché produces wines of dense, soft, velvety plumminess, moderate in both tannins and acidity, flattering and enveloping on the palate, remarkably easy-to-love.
It’s quite amazing, given these characteristics, that ruché has spent so much time in obscurity, but this is due to the fact that it doesn’t ripen with immense willingness, and immature will make tart, tannic, rather tough wine. Nevertheless, as more producers take care to leave the berries on the vine to fatten for as long as possible, ruché’s potential for making soft, pleasant red wine is getting more and more attention.
Tldr: obscure due to historic toughness, but modern softness is bringing justified fame and winning admirers.
Schiava – also known in German as ‘Trollinger’ or sometimes ‘Vernatsch’ (itself a confusing calque of the Italia ‘vernaccia’, normally the name of a white wine grape…). Though it is now spread as far as Lombardy and Baden-Württemburg, its native land is almost certainly the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Sudtirol, where it is still considered an important varietal or near-varietal wine in its own right.
Though being moderate rather than high in acidity, its light body and relative lack of tannin means that it feels very fresh in the mouth without being sharp or sour. Bright and aromatic, soft flowery notes on the nose tend to give way to a sweeter, more concentrated berryness on the palate.
Tldr: fresh, fragrant, floral variety likely indigenous to its present Italian stronghold in Sudtirol.
Schioppettino – another one of those very Italian revival stories, a grape pushed to the very brink by the early 1960s only to experience a remarkable comeback. It’s still not especially well-known or well-planted these days, but it has carved out an undeniable niche for itself in its home corner of Friuli.
As Alpine (or perhaps rather Dolomitic) a red as you could conceive of, it might also be helpful to think of schioppettino as a kind of Friulian answer to Beaujolais, or maybe to Beaujolais’ signature grape: gamay. The key theme here is lightness – both varieties are naturally rather high in acid, low in tannins, and not especially noted for their alcoholic potential (indeed, these are wines that can benefit from being stuck in the fridge for half an hour before serving!). Instead of power, what shines here is bright, crunchy, juicy red berries, and floral, herbal aromas – added to which schioppettino can boast an impressive pepperiness and even an earthy note, something between hay and hot stones.
A vine very much on the comeback trail, schioppettino is becoming better and better known even outside of the northeast of Italy, where it is now considered a real missed trick for any shop or bar not to have at least one bottle on offer.
Tldr: another autochthonous rebirth success story, this time a fresh, vibrant alternative to fine Beaujolais cru.
Teroldego – if, in reading this article (or indeed part one of our vinopendium), you got the impression that the Italian wine landscape resembled something like an emergency ward, where embattled grape varieties were nursed back from near-extinction by dedicated and determined winemaker-medics, then the story of teroldego will not disabuse you of this notion. And, as is so often the case as well, this characterful and now-beloved vine has a particular hero to thank for its resurrection – Trento-based Elisabetta Foradori, whose eponymous winery first brought teroldego back from the brink, then spread its gospel far and wide, up to the point where these days it can lay claim to being one of Europe’s most fashionable red varieties.
However, this is a resurrection story with a twist. Teroldego wasn’t, like arneis or schioppettino, a vine in danger of dying out – in fact quite the opposite, as this was a grape that was considered far too profligate, mass-producing, a churner of colourless factory-wine of no interest to anyone with even half an eye on quality. Yet this was all to change in the year 1984.
Elisabetta Foradori’s interest in teroldego sprang from the realisation that clonal selection had prioritised versions of the grape that prioritised production, production, production, and nothing else at all. Instead of going with the basic clones available en masse to her, therefore, she decided to press ahead with an older idea – massal selection, or the grouping together of large numbers of different old vines rather than one, pure, perhaps-underinspiring vine. This, along with biodynamic practices inspired by the great German tradition, succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. Teroldego went almost overnight from being a grape of little interest, a way to add colour and bite to an indifferent blend, to a lodestar for the region, a heavyweight red wine to put among the newly famous zappy whites of the area, and now there are dozens of magnificent producers crafting exceptional wines from this zero-to-hero variety.
It is highly likely that teroldego is native to the dolomitic region of Alto-Adige (/Sudtirol) in which these days it has staked its claim to greatness. Deep colour it has, as well as a certain tannic chewiness (though less than lagrein), but depth of fruit also, a cassis-and-backberry thing that recalls cabernet or syrah (of whom it is an ‘uncle’ variety), but with a pronounced earthiness and a finish of noticeably almond-bitterness that in Italy is perhaps the flavour prized above all. Grown all over the region – and indeed in Brazil – it is also responsible for one DOC, the Teroldego Rotaliano, whose soils and elevation are particularly noteworthy for helping to tame this vine’s excessive vigour.
Tldr: once-despised-now-prized earthy red variety from Trentino-Alto Adige, one of the region’s real star turns.
The Centre
Aleatico – fragrant, slightly mysterious grape found really all over Italy, but whose home haunt is unquestionably Tuscany, and especially the island of Elba. Though a perfectly reliable producer of light-to-medium reds, it is as a producer of rosés and in particular of sweet wines that this variety really finds its métier.
In its rare international plantings, most prominently Chile, the name it bears gives us our first clue about this wine’s heritage and character: ‘red moscatel’. Because indeed this is a variety related to the infamously diverse muscat family, even though the exact nature of the relationship still eludes the botanical geneticists. This would further be obvious on the nose, as moscato’s trademark ‘grapiness’ is the most immediately obvious fruit note, which sounds a bit silly to say but is in fact unavoidably true. This is true of the dry reds and pinks made all over central Italy, but is extremely true of the dessert wines made by the passito fruit-drying technique, of which fine examples exist from Lake Bolsena’s Aleatico di Gradoli to the Aleatico di Puglia DOC (which can also be a fortified wine). Nevertheless, it’s surely Elba’s Aleatico DOCG, sometimes called Aleatico di Portoferraio, that can lay claim to being the epitome of this style, combining tremendous sweet density with surprising fleetness of foot and refinement (as its most famous fan, Napoleon Bonaparte, would surely attest).
Tldr: more than usefully fresh grape that’s a favourite for saline coastal rosés and fragrant sticky passiti.
Canaiolo – for the majority of Chianti’s history the main grape in the blend – and it was primarily a blend – was probably not the current star of Tuscany (of which more below) but rather canaiolo, a variety now slipping down the pecking order somewhat but which once upon a time was among the most famous in Italy.
Why canaiolo has been supplanted we shall see when we get to its usurper. Certainly it doesn’t help itself by its relative difficulty of cultivation and by its occasional habit of relaxing into the flabby and the flaccid, guilty of the most strangely-despised tasting note in the red wine lexicon: jam.
However, it has two historic strengths which enabled it to climb to the top of the Chianti ranks in the first place – this genuine fruitiness, not always reliably found in the winemaking of yesteryear, and its propensity to do something valued also by us up in the Veneto, namely dry well. In the early days of Chianti, Tuscan winemakers devised a trick called ‘governo’, whereby batches of grapes would be set aside to partially dry out, thus concentrating the sugars and enabling the winemaker to ‘kick-start’ a fermentation that had got stuck (a big problem for pre-modern viticulture). Canaiolo’s ability to go through this process, its disease-resistance, made it ideal for Chianti producers.
The advent of the ‘Ricasoli recipe’ however, coming in the mid-19th century after great advances in vinification technique, reduced the role of canaiolo to blending partner, its starring role as governo-variety-in-chief no longer valued as once it was. Its decline continued post-phylloxera, as the vine doesn’t take as well as others to being grafted onto the bug-repelling American rootstock that saved so many of Europe’s vineyards, and in the century that followed the fashion demand for its more famous neighbour further diminished its place in the Tuscan wine world.
These days, however, canaiolo is having something of a comeback. Methods for holding up its acidity and tannins just enough to offset its bursting fruit-basket character have produced some stunning monovarietal wines of smoky complexity, even some worth ageing. Its place in the blends is also still valued, as reliable esters in lean years will always make a grape variety valued. Its heritage noble, its recent past troubled, and its future bright, canaiolo feels like a noble dynasty finding its feet again in the 21st century.
Tldr: venerable Chianti variety prone to jamminess but more recently found to be capable of real interest.
Cesanese – the variety that is, amid today’s newfound trend for appreciating the light-bodied and the autochthonous, increasingly a wagon to which Lazio is hitching its future.
Cesanese is really the name for three very closely-related subtypes (something between clones and independent varieties): cesanese comune, cesanese d’Affile, and cesanese nostrano (the most recent to have been identified), all of which are considered extremely late to ripen especially phenolically. The first two are considered the more important, as cesanese comune is more resistant to disease and more productive, while cesanese d’Affile is often considered to make the finer wine (though really both are capable of excellence given the right conditions).
There is one DOCG and one DOC powered by cesanese, though there are also myriad excellent Lazio Rosso IGT wines made from it. Cesanese del Piglio DOCG, from the heart of Frosinone province, must be at least 90% cesanese (and is often varietal), and is often considered the softer of the appellations, pushing the pepper and green herbs elements to the fore; Cesanese di Olevano Romano DOC, from around the village of the same name southeast of the capital city, must be at least 85% made from the cesanese grapes, is renowned for its rougher tannins and more robust profile. Interestingly for a wine of its type – medium bodied, relatively soft – cesanese derives limited benefit from oak ageing, generally suiting younger drinking and fresher-designed allevamento (in cement, for instance), though there are examples of successful barrel-ageing out there.
Though first mentioned around six hundred years ago, the ampelographers studying cesanese’s DNA have determined that it must be an extremely old variety indeed, likely pre-dating the existence of the Roman Empire. An Eternal Grape, then, for the Eternal City.
Tldr: ancient, medium-bodied, intriguingly herbal and pleasantly bitter variety from the heart of Lazio.
Ciliegiolo – the name effectively means ‘cherryish’, and that’s not a bad descriptive starter at all. Associated mainly with Tuscany, it’s also grown somewhat in Umbria, where the style is distinctive and rather different to its neighbour.
Though once upon a time considered a contributor to the Chianti blend, these varietal-favouring times have seen a decline in interest for ciliegiolo, whose difficulty in the vineyard didn’t endear it to winemakers not wishing to struggle to hard for 1-2% of an assemblage. Indeed, there is no DOCG or DOC which permits a varietal, 100% ciliegiolo wine, meaning that any made must be released as an IGT.
However, for those who do persist, the rewards can be very interesting indeed. Ciliegiolo is an interestingly low-in-everything variety – that’s to say, low alcohol, low tannin, lowish acidity – but nevertheless still quite abundant in the esters that give wine its fruit and flower aromas. This encourages many winemakers to make it into a rosato, to better balance out the acidity there is, and in Umbria the preferred style is a light, pleasant red which can benefit from a little time in the chiller. Examples from Tuscany however, particularly those from the sandy Maremma region, tend to be ripened a bit later and vinified with a bit more sternness about them, making for rather more serious drinking.
Tldr: lightish, bitterish, undeniably cherryish speciality of Tuscany and Umbria making generally friendly reds and pinks.
Colorino – another grape whose name pretty much gives the game away, and another historic variety of Tuscany in general and of Chianti in particular. Colorino was always used to add – what else? – colour to the Chianti blend, as some of the other varieties historically used for this most famous of wines didn’t always give the kind of dark and serious purple associated with ‘prestigious’ reds.
Better techniques and warmer years have changed this, however, rather depriving colorino of its role in the greater scheme of things, and as it was never particularly valued on its own (viewed as rather tough and aromatically unyielding) plantings have been in decline. However, comparisons with Bordeaux’s petit verdot variety – similarly robust and less-appreciated but now going through something of a resurgence – indicate the growing appreciation for colorino, which is now being vinified and bottled as a Toscana IGT monovarietal by Montenidoli and others, and make for fine, full, dense, earthy drinking.
Tldr: deep-hued historic blending variety steadily gaining a fanbase.
Lacrima – quite possibly the strangest grape on this list, lacrima is also one of the most definitely ancient, boasting among its attested fans Frederick Barbarossa nearly 1,000 years ago. Grown pretty well exclusively in Le Marche, it is chiefly known as the variety behind the Lacrima di Morro d’Alba DOC, around the village called Morro d’Alba in the province of Ancona.
The name, meaning ‘teardrop’, has a few different stories behind it, none of which seems more likely than the other, and which may all be true. Phylloxera-susceptible, plantings of the vine had declined to barely a hectare before the elevation of this unique wine to DOC status in the mid-1980s.
And though it was a long time coming you can see why, despite its fall into near-abeyance, the good people at the ministry of agriculture made the decision to officialise this wine style, because Lacrima di Morro d’Alba is, frankly, not quite like anything else around. Medium-bodied and medium-acidic with somewhat stark tannins, this is a wine that’s all about the bouquet – here a word with a double-meaning, as the wine is so extravagantly floral that some writers have compared it to potpourri. Certainly violets abound, along with lavender, roses, and a touch of what Jancis Robinson likes to call garrigue (that distinctive Provençal scrub shrub). To add further to the funky vibe this wine is almost always made using the Tuscan governo method, with extra grapes dried a little and added into the wine to help kickstart fermentation.
Normally this isn’t a wine that ages particularly well – but then again, given its extravagant floral characteristics early on in life anyway, maybe it doesn’t need to. Bottlings aren’t easy to come by but absolutely worth giving a shot.
Tldr: divisive, deeply unusual, unbelievably floral Marche variety that you either love or you do not love.
Montepulciano – a biggy. Montepulciano is a grape which can be found all the way from Piedmont to Puglia, the second most planted red in Italy. It is a permitted variety in no fewer than thirty different DOCs and DOCGs, and it finds its way into plenty of IGTs besides. It’s a vine that can produce decent wine almost in spite of itself, almost by accident, and when pressed by the careful farmer can produce something really very remarkable indeed. It’s also a fundamentally reliable grape, in that it will ripen almost anywhere and produce the exact flavours you were hoping for. Basically, the only thing that isn’t straightforward about it is what it’s called, the Tuscan Vino Nobile di Montepulciano being made from, in fact, sangiovese.
But it might indicate something. Montepulciano in this case is the name of a village in Tuscany, which is most likely the region where the vine montepulciano first came from. It’s probable – like the nightmares we suffer about glera and prosecco – that there was simply a mistake at some point that got the grape stuck with the label of some place nearby, a place where it doesn’t actually grow but, hey, close enough. It’s not the worst confusion there’s ever been, but it doesn’t help us that’s for sure, especially given that the grape is most closely associated not with Tuscany at all, but with one of its neighbours – Abruzzo.
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a wine so synonymous with its region that some might even mistake the name for the grape itself. In fact, the DOC is virtually coextensive with the Abruzzo region, as wines of at least 85% montepulciano produced in most parts of the four provinces are eligible for the label. But the picture isn’t (was it ever going to be?) this simple, as various subzones exist, each with their own rules and regulations for defining Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, what’s a riserva, and so on. Suffice for now to say that the most important of these subzones is itself a DOCG, the mighty Colline Teramo.
The wine made from montepulciano is very easy to enjoy. Unusually low in acidity for an Italian red varietal, its big juicy berries and pleasant, mouthfilling fleshiness (usually held up by a reliable tannic scaffolding) are flattering to any palate. The finest examples however, often those with a touch extra freshness to keep them going over a few years, can develop herbaceous and tobacco notes, as well as a certain enjoyable inkiness.
Fine examples of montepulciano wine can be found in Molise, just over Abruzzo’s newest border, and in Puglia, where it plays an important role in the Castel del Monte DOC blend. But it’s in Abruzzo, where it can also make a delicious neon rosé called Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, that it has found its undisputed home.
Tldr: big name, big flavours, big enjoyment from mainly Abruzzo.
Sagrantino – native and basically exclusive to Umbria, the vine responsible for the Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCG and, quite possibly, the most tannic grape produced in significant quantities anywhere on the planet. We’re talking more tannin than the tannat grape of Madiran and Uruguay, a variety literally named after how tannic it is. That’s how much tannin sagrantino has – indeed, it leaves even notably grippy vines like nebbiolo not just behind, but lapped 0n the track(it has twice the phenolic content, on average, than the Piedmont superstar).
But sagrantino is no one-trick pony – indeed, as well as its truly stupendous tannic structure, the berries are capable of notable acidic juiciness and no low level of alcohol (which, in the end, is probably a good thing given the need for balance). It’s not an easy vine – early to flower, late to ripen, and a very grudging yielder of fruit (though this is generally good for quality), and a pronounced tendency to try and climb the nearest tree meaning it requires quite stern training. A bit of an ornery customer, in other words.
But the rewards for the conscientious winemakers of the Montefalco area are quite unlike anything else in the wine world Deep, dense, dark, brambly, unmistakably tough and sinewy, but also a purveyor of remarkable glittering aromas and perfumes, with an acidity that helps it not tire the palate, and which adapts it tremendously well to food pairings, and which give the best examples serious cellar-longevity.
As we said, pretty much all the sagrantino grown in Italy (indeed on earth) comes from Umbria, and most of that from the Montefalco area. Sometimes, to make younger wines readier and easier to drink, sagrantino takes the lead in a blend sold under the label of Rosso di Montefalco, supported by a vine which, it must be admitted, is rather better known…
Tldr: big Umbrian grape that says ‘I hope you like tannins’.
Sangiovese – the grape you could describe with justification as the main character of Italian wine. The most planted vine in Italy by absolutely miles, with some 65,000 hectares of the stuff at least (near enough doubling the next most planted, the prosecco grape glera), it’s also one of the most diffuse, with examples found even in the most unsuspecting corners of the country. So prominent, so predominant is sangiovese in the winescape of the bel paese you’d be forgiven for thinking that it had ever been thus, that this venerable old grape must have been a star for all of its recorded existence. The reality, however, is far murkier.
Sangiovese hasn’t always been a star, indeed hasn’t always been the protagonist of the region for which it is these days most famous (see canaiolo above). It’s always been vastly planted, yes, but rather more in the manner of a workhorse than a grape for showcasing top-level oenological artistry. The best indication of what sangiovese was once considered to be, was indeed once considered its natural state, is the rather thin, indifferent, bulk stuff produced all over Romagna (we regret to admit it but, sadly, bad wine does still persist out there). Romagna could be the ancestral homeland of the vine, and in the fertile soils and intense summer heat its tendency towards vigour and overproduction can become pronounced, producing wine that gives the unhappy sensation of having been diluted.
But there’s another side to sangiovese, indeed a peculiarity that can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on your winemaking skill and assiduity. Sangiovese is, as they say, rather genetically unstable – that’s to say it mutates easily, and clones almost compulsively. The result is that the sangiovese family is a large one, consisting of a remarkably large number of different subgrapes, all of which are identifiably sangiovese, but all of which flourish in subtly different conditions to produce markedly different wines. Indeed, this capacity for expressing terroir is another of the grape’s most notable characteristics, and again is a strength to great winemakers but a weakness in rather less conscientious production, as the singular characteristics of the variety have tended to be subsumed by blending and process.
This is especially evident in the region that launched sangiovese to worldwide fame, and where (it’s hard to deny) the vast majority of its best expressions are to be found today. Because although ‘sangiovese’ is indeed found all over Tuscany, different areas of this romantic rolling region swear by, indeed quite literally bet the farms on, markedly different clones of the vine, each of which merits its own discussion here.
The main two subtypes of the grape can be grouped together under the headings ‘sangiovese piccolo’ and ‘sangiovese grosso’, distinguished, naturally enough, by the size of the berries themselves. Certain characteristics – the relatively late-ripening, the low-to-medium body and tannins, the acidity that makes it such a versatile food wine – are common to both of these and all their clones. Beyond this, however, there’s a lot of variation.
Sangiovese piccolo is, though mostly unwittingly, the best-known, as it’s the type used in Chianti (though as ever it’s never that simple as there remain a remarkable number of subclones used across the area, each adapted whichever peculiar terroir it finds itself in across this large and diverse wine region). Chianti is impossible to summarise, but we all know its trademark flavours, from the often-ferruginous zip of basic Chianti Classico to the warm envelop of many a Riserva. A subvariety nearer the coast, known as morellino for its distinctive brownness, is the basis for the Morellino di Scansano DOCG, generally considered to be the freshest, zippiest expression of sangiovese out there.
Sangiovese grosso’s reach is a bit longer, at least when it comes to encompassing a wide variety of different DOC and DOCG regions. As the grapes are a bit bigger, so, in general, are the wines that result from them – a bit longer to ripen, they will eventually yield more alcohol, more tannin, and a little less freshness (though acidity is, as a rule, quite pronounced across all sangiovese types), and as a result most sangiovesi grossi are better bets for pronounced oak aging than their piccoli cousins. The most celebrated subclone of sangiovese grosso carries the government name of BBS11, but Brunello Biondi Santi 11 is better known to the wine world as brunello, responsible for the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, the most prestigious and, often, long-lived example of sangiovese; meanwhile, in the village of Montepulciano (not to be confused with the grape of the same name!) a version known as prugnolo gentile is the author of the dense, smacking wines labelled Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
But of course, it doesn’t stop there (how could it?). Though even Chianti now allows for 100% sangiovese bottlings (and others like Brunello mandate it), many monovarietals are bottled under IGT labels. Furthermore sangiovese is an uncommonly good pairer with the imported Bordeaux varietals, as legendary Super Tuscan Tignanello demonstrates so well. Elsewhere, the Carmignano DOCG was blending with cabernet before anyone else, making remarkably structured but refreshing reds of immense appeal to their loyal fanbase.
And still, it’s not done. On the steeper slopes of Umbria to the southeast, sangiovese becomes a much valued blending partner in Rosso di Montefalco, softening out some of sagrantino’s sharper edges, while in the Colli di Trasimeno area it achieves a certain exciting perfuminess. Heading north back to Romagna, meanwhile, careful and ambitious winemakers have proved that this historic stronghold of sangiovese is capable of genuine greatness, with genuinely savoury and almost bloody wines of a certain leggerezza capturing more and more attention.
Everywhere you look now, in fact, sangiovese appears triumphant. We’ve come a long way since Chianti regarded it as almost a neutral red variety – now its trademarks, from the iron-like minerality to its definitive touch of cooked apple, are as much a staple of the global palate as merlots plums and damsons or the cassis and mint of cabernet sauvignon; except that, like pinot noir, one of its trademarks is its true mutability, its adaptability to terroir, its ineffable sense of expressing time and place. Sangiovese is undoubtedly one of Italian wine’s greatest treasures.
Tldr: Tuscany-based megastar behind Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and many others.
The South and the Islands
Aglianico – how alphabetically convenient that our overview of the black grapes of the Italian mezzogiorno should begin with, as is generally agreed, its greatest, its most noble, its most capable of transcendence, and most certainly its biggest star internationally.
Aglianico is a very ancient grape indeed, its attestations in the region going back millennia, and we are virtually certain is of Greek origin (its name likely a minor corruption of ‘elleniko’, the Greek word for, well, Greek). None is left over in Hellas though – this is now a specialty of the Italian meridionale, the only place in the country warm enough to really ripen the fruit in full, and in particular of Campania and Basilicata, whose two most famous expressions have achieved such renown as to have earned the shared nickname ‘the Barolo of the South’.
To Campania first, and to the region’s most mighty, long-lived, universally-appreciated wine: the Taurasi DOCG. According to the legendary Jancis Robinson the aglianico here can be harvested as late as November, which is a pretty incredible length of time to leave grapes on the vine. Based around the beautiful and ancient village of Taurasi, the soils here are notably volcanic – indeed virtually the whole of Campania is, rather famously, conspicuous for its volcanicity – but mix into that a good amount of limestone, considered crucial worldwide for much fine winemaking. Historically little-known to the outside world, Taurasi shot to international acclaim in the 1970s largely thanks to the stunning wines of Antonio Mastroberardini, who these days is joined by Antonio Caggiano, Feudi di San Gregorio, and many others. Even with this spectacularly late harvesting schedule Taurasi is a noticeably dense and austere wine with grippy tannins and no low acidity, and though plenty are delicious early on, the best examples have the capacity to age for decades. These are brooding, dark wines, with an almost aristocratic elegance that allies judicious fruit to often exquisite chocolate and smoke notes.
Meanwhile in Basilicata one of wine’s most evocative names and most haunting sites stakes its claim as one of the greatest expressions of aglianico. Aglianico del Vulture DOCG was, at time of founding, Basilicata’s first DOC and its only one for some three decades. Now elevated to DOCG, it is the star wine of this rugged, tough, rocky region.
The Vulture itself is an extinct volcano in Potenza, the westernmost of Basilicata’s two provinces, and thus the one which borders fellow aglianico champions Campania. This is a hot and sometimes harsh place, which actually makes it ideal for a grape like aglianico, as harvests here like in nearby Taurasi can take place as late as November. The wines here are distinctly sinewy and muscular, especially in youth, but as the years go by it reveals remarkable organoleptic complexity, really interesting perfumey ‘top notes’ coming to the fore. There’s nothing else quite like it.
Vulture also, remarkably, produces a sparkling red, from grapes harvested considerably earlier than the brooding still wines. And all over the Campania region aglianico can be made into simple, agile, refreshing wines both red and rosé. There are other areas also trying to produce complex versions to rival the big two, as well.
Tldr: one of the jewels of the south, a big, growly, dense, complicated wine grape that can also make something a bit more cheerful – though is at its best as a giant.
Cannonau – the Sardinian name for grenache, despite local legends to the contrary very likely to have originated in now-Spanish Aragon and migrated across the water (though this is still contested!), where it is now the island’s most important red grape by a considerable distance. Indeed, Italy is responsible for something near a tenth of all global production of this venerable grape (elsewhere the power behind such celebrated reds as Catalonia’s Priorat or Rhonish superstar Châteauneuf-du-Pape) practically all down to this island’s love affair with the grape. The Cannonau di Sardegna DOC covers the entire island, meaning that any cannonau wine made anywhere on Sardinia is eligible for the DOC label as long as it obeys certain rules, and something like 20% of all of the island’s wine is Cannonau di Sardegna.
And it really isn’t all that difficult to abide by those DOC rules – indeed, to get riserva you only need to hit 12.5% alcohol, hardly any sort of problem for heady, superripe cannonau. These wines can of course be cheerful, juicy, everyday table-fillers at the lower end of the spectrum, but further up the scale you’ll find wines which absolutely match their peers in the Mediterranean mainland for depth, complexity, purity of strawberryish fruit and ethereality of tobacco-ish smokeyness. Look in particular for the three finest subzones on Sardinia: Nepente di Oliena and Jerzu in central-eastern Nuoro province; and Capo Ferrato in the province of Sud Sardegna, covering most of the southeast corner.
Wherever it’s originally from, there’s no doubt cannonau-grenache-garnacha has found a home on this most beautiful of islands.
Tldr: Sardinian sobriquet for Mediterranean star grenache, as broody and bristly here (not to mention as in top fruity form) as anywhere else on earth.
Carignano – as with cannonau, a (likely) import from Spain where it is known as cariñena after – presumably – the Aragonese village of the same name. It is probably best known in the Languedoc, where as carignan it has had a somewhat troubled reputation as a vine of quite astounding overproductivity, prone to churning out oceans of pale, tart, none-too-special stuff.
When kept under rigorous control however, or perhaps when simply allowed to age into a cranky, grudging old bush, the transformation is quite remarkable. And the carignano grown in Sardinia, particularly in the Sulcis DOC, is considered by many (including Jancis Robinson) as perhaps the grape’s finest expression anywhere – dark, deep, brambly, surprisingly aromatic and backed up by appreciable structure.
Tldr: very widely-planted Mediterranean whose Sardinian examples might be its best.
Frappato – if ever a wine could be described as ‘summery’! Frappato is a native of Sicily, grown all over but particularly well-known in the area of Vittoria in the province of Ragusa, where it adds vim and freshness to a blend with nero d’avola known as Cerasuolo di Vittoria, one of the few DOCG-level rosés in Italy. Delicious though these wines are, one of the more exciting stories in Sicilian wine over the last couple of decades has been the emergence from the shadows of frappato as a variety of great interest in its own right.
Frappato is very frequently compared to Beaujolais, or perhaps more specifically to the Beaujolais grape, gamay (or gamay noir (or gamay noir à jus blanc…)). The reasons for the comparisons are obvious – the bright strawberryish fruit aromas, the fair crackle of acidity, the moderate alcohol and almost vanishingly soft tannins. But there are also great differences, such as the the more reddish colour of frappato, its slightly spicier tang, indeed its almost hostile relationship with wood (Beaujolais cru producers are increasingly fond of barrel-ageing).
Basically, frappato is one of those red wines that straddles the line between ‘light red’ and ‘dark rosé’, and whose dry-yet-generous fruit style is absolutely perfect for a bit of fridging whether on its own or in its famous blended pink guise.
Tldr: light, cheerful, increasingly interesting Sicilian grape of future summers.
Gaglioppo – one of the two major red grapes of Calabria, and particularly of what most consider its finest subregion – Cirò. This isn’t just a region of great quality but also one of great age, being attested as a producer of wine under some version of the same name for millennia. Cirò Rosso, the most prominent of the three colours made by the region, must be predominantly gaglioppo, usually ranging between 80-95% of the final wine, meaning the characteristics of that grape are enshrined in law as the driving characteristics of Cirò itself.
And what are those characteristics? Contradictory, interestingly enough, with famously deep colour and tannins that really coat the inside of the mouth, but also with enough acidity to cut through the tannin and – most importantly – an extraordinary perfumed set of aromas, a floral component very reminiscent of roses, and a surprisingly lifted fruit profile.
Gaglioppo is likely an impossibly ancient vine, but it isn’t a very easy one to cultivate, with a very small window in which to harvest it when the tannins are ready but while the acidity’s still up. As Cirò shows, however, the rewards are substantial, and the respect for the vine and the high, dry, mysterious region whose wine it powers is growing everywhere.
Tldr: very historic Calabrian variety responsible for the region’s most important red, the dense-yet-aromatic Cirò Rosso.
Magliocco – the second grape of Calabria, also known as magliocco canino, and another of those Italian grape stories where an ancient, historic variety dwindled in popularity over the course of the 20th century only to undergo a resurgence largely at the behest of one local champion. Librandi, who for a long time were the great standard bearers for quality winemaking in the Toe of the Boot, championed the variety towards the end of the last century, not only bringing it greater appreciation but also instigating its diffusion, to the point now where the only native red variety in Calabria considered more important is gaglioppo.
While gaglioppo is capable of achieving deep colour and grippy tannins with substantial maceration periods, magliocco is by nature darker and more substantial. Its main problem in the vineyard is a certain susceptibility to long periods of dry weather, something of a hazard for a variety trying to flourish in the occasionally harsh scrub of Calabria. Nevertheless a bit of struggle is, as we know, necessary for vines to make quality wine, and magliocco in the right conditions is capable of remarkable ripeness (we’re talking pretty big alcohol content here) to go with a bursting, gentle, strawberry and raspberry profile.
It has become a somewhat signature variety for the Cosenza province, featuring very prominently in several subzones of the Terre di Cosenza DOC, occasionally as a varietal. It’s often blended with its more famous partner gaglioppo as well, to add oomph and density.
Tldr: revived Cosenza speciality which with the right care and conditions will substantially reward the vinifier with something strong, soft and fruity.
Negroamaro – Pugliese variety whose name means ‘black bitter’ – with the caveat that the ‘amaro’ might actually be a borrowing from the Greek ‘mavro’, giving the grape the technical meaning of ‘black black’. Certainly the advertised bitterness isn’t always easy to locate, in spite of the Italian palate’s famous hankering for a touch of acridity. What it has instead is a generally impressively heady alcohol level, reliably soft tannins (especially when oaked) and a very distinctive earthy vibe to go with its obvious fruitiness.
Planted quite widely in Puglia especially, its best-known exponents to the outside world come from the Lecce part of the Salento area, where the Salice Salentino DOC produces fruit-forward, dreamy, hot sunshine reds with a stony quality. Next door neighbours Squinzano DOC are also particularly renowned.
Tldr: niche but respected beakerful of the warm south.
Nerello cappuccio – so, this is a controversial one. Unquestionably, nerello cappuccio is a grape associated with Calabria and Sicily, and in particular with the regions of Faro, in the province of Messina, and (especially) Etna, in Catania. It is rarely the star but very often finds itself as a vital blending partner to more familiarly main-eventing nerello mascalese. So much is known.
However, it gets complicated. Some studies have suggested that a majority – even as much as two thirds – of the plantings of nerello cappuccio are really southern French staple carignan (carignano in Italian), and that over the years they must have got planted in the same fields and muddled up. Some of them are carignan, no doubt – but further investigation has suggested that maybe not as much as that. Nevertheless it’s created enough confusion to jumble things up a bit.
And you can see why there would be confusion oenologically as well, nerello cappuccio producing a decidedly grippy and cherry-scented wine that contributes tannin to the Etna reds and sometimes a little bit of chewiness.
Tldr: sometimes mixed up with carignan; adds bite to Etna blends.
Nerello mascalese – incredibly exciting Sicilian variety, associated particularly with Mount Etna and considered one of the most promising, high-quality, even ‘noble’ grape varieties of the island, indeed the whole of Italy.
The name derives from that of Màscali, a village and comune that lies between the city of Catania and its famous volcano (the name Màscali itself is thought to come from medieval Greek, meaning either ‘wooded’ or, more incongruously, ‘armpit’). The vine itself, though not especially finicky, fell out of favour due to two characteristics common among the finer varieties (as opposed to the bulk-wine churner-outters): its relatively low-yields and its tendency to ripen late. However, as the emphasis on quantity diminished and quality-consciousness grew towards the end of the 20th century, the variety began to find first favour, then renown, then something barely short of cult worship, world wine’s worst kept secret, an incredible upswing for a hitherto obscure variety.
It thrives particularly on the high altitudes and wildly varying soils of its mountain home, where vineyards can be found as high as one kilometre above sea level, and where the rich array of terroirs will reward the vine capable of expressing them. And nerello mascalese is magnificently adept at expressing terroir, so much so in fact that some people say no two glasses are the same!
There are, however, some broad commonalities that most examples will share. Nerello mascalese is, broadly speaking, both a light and a medium-bodied wine, with the perfume, acidity, and clear vermilion of a less heavy wine (like pinot noir or gamay) but the alcoholic body and, often, tannins of a big wine (comparable on both scores to brunello). In this way it resembles nebbiolo – but it is considerably less austere and more friendly, more like a Beaujolais cru in its combination of youthful drinkability and ageing potential. Moreover, it is distinguished by remarkable aromatic complexity, with a fascinating stones-and-herbs thing going for it that few other vines could replicate. This near-unique juxtaposition, the rich delicacy, the dense lightness, has inspired many winemakers to utilise oak barrels as little as possible, with some opting not to age the wine in wood at all so as to preserve this fleetness and firmness of foot.
Though it is often found, especially in rosés, blended (usually with habitual partner nerello cappuccio, a less-planted vine whose true identity is hotly debated), the Etna and Faro DOCs (the latter from the hills hanging over Messina) are increasingly tending towards mascalese dominance, with Etna wines frequently bottled as monovarietals these days – bottles that are growing in respect and popularity as this extraordinary one-off of a grapevine continues its seemingly unstoppable rise.
Tldr: Sicily’s newest superstar, both a light wine and a big one, like a bodybuilder with a ballerina’s agility. Look out for this aromatic phenomenon.
Nero d’Avola – if frappato is Sicily’s gamay, and nerello mascalese its pinot noir, then nero d’Avola (sometimes called calabrese) is its cabernet sauvignon, or syrah – or perhaps, more accurately, its shiraz, given its oft-remarked-upon similarities to that grape’s new world incarnation.
Although it is Sicily’s most widely-planted variety (and indeed is apparently named for the southeastern town of Avola), it was originally in the west of the island where DOCs such as Alcamo, Contessa Entellina and Valledolmo-Contea di Sclafani, and Duca di Salaparuta were among the first to really put this grape on the world’s mental map of wine. These days, however, the Nero d’Avola DOC which covers virtually all of Sicily is not only among the most varied wine PDOs in all of Europe, but one of the most remarkably high quality, with exceptional wines of all sorts of styles and philosophies coming from every corner of the island.
While it is a fine grape expressive of terroir, the nero d’Avola wine template has become one of Italy’s most iconic and instantly-recognisable. Flourishing (very like syrah) in the kind of hot Mediterranean climate that defines Sicily, the wine drinking public has quite reasonably come to expect the trademark fruit explosion, as well as a certain chocolate note (especially if it’s done time in barrel) and the pepperiness that has attracted so many comparisons with the Hermitage superstar. On the palate you’ll rarely find the tannins shy or the acidity muted, this being a wine that rather likes to make itself known up front, but the alcohol can vary a fascinating amount, from the low thirteens up to fifteen-plus.
And there is yet another world-recognised string to its bow, as nero d’Avola is very often the driving force (and never less than an equal partner in) the great rosé of the island, the Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG, where it must make up between 70% of the blend with its partner, the lighter and jouncier frappato. This wine, one of vanishingly few rosé DOCGs in Italy, is considered by many the finest in the country, a rich depth of flavour combined with a lightness that recalls the great rosé of the Rhone, Tavel.
While it is grown in other regions, especially in Calabria where it is finding considerable success, there’s no doubt that nero d’Avola loves Sicily as much as Sicily loves nero d’Avola. Lucky them – lucky us.
Tldr: great Sicilian red-wine vine, can be anything but is usually a serious and big fellow (though don’t sleep on the rosato).
Piedirosso – Campania’s second red grape after all-conquering aglianico is a refreshing (in more than one sense) contrast to its more famous colleague’s heft and heartiness.
Its name, meaning ‘red feet’, is apparently a reference to pigeons, which indeed is the meaning of its other, Neapolitan name (pere’e palumme, ‘pigeon’s feet’), and while this is a coincidence there is something of the birdlike in the nature of the wine, poised, agile, springy. Usually light-bodied with a bright translucent red colour, the tannins are very restrained and the acidity is notably pronounced. But what really distinguishes piedirosso wines is their capacity for mineral complexity, from a certain stoniness to (often) a distinct salty edge, not to mention the herbaceousness and smoky tobacco notes that go along with – naturally – gleaming, scintillating fruit.
Though grown all over the region it is best known as the driving force behind one of Italy’s strangest and most captivatingly-named reds, the Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio DOC. Made, as the name gives away, on the slopes of the famous volcano, it benefits from the always fascinating igneous soils of the mountain, whose soils and microclimates are typical of what makes volcanic wines from the Canaries to Santorini so appealing to wine drinkers. Its usual blending partner here is the local olivella, also called sciascinoso, though more and more emphasis on the piedirosso is becoming fashionable, as are monovarietal examples from all over Campania. It’s also sometimes blended with aglianico, often to make deep, fruity rosati.
Tldr: the light and fresh variety of Campania, especially of Vesuvius, capable of heady complexity on the nose and refreshment on the palate.
Primitivo – of all the grapes of Puglia, red or white, the best known, the most requested, and the one with the biggest built-in following. You see, it turns out that primitivo is another name for the grape known in California as zinfandel, the much-beloved fruit-forward juicy zinger known for its approachability and friendliness.
But it wasn’t ever thus. Primitivo had actually been rather in decline in Puglia, whose enormous yields destined for bulking up thinner northern blends weren’t focused on the kind of quality – let alone monovarietal expressiveness – that would come to define the oenological trends of the end of the century. But just like zinfandel, however, recent decades have seen quite a big change in this regard – and to understand that, it takes a bit of history.
You see, the origins of zinfandel were for many years a matter of considerable mystery. It was regarded by some as possibly even America’s great indigenous variety, until it was proven to be a vitis vinifera plant (that’s to say, the winemaking breeds of vine which are all of European and Middle-Eastern origin). Tests in the late 80s and early 90s further showed an almost-exact genetic matching with primitivo, albeit a couple of clones’ distance away (a bit like the difference between the morellino and brunello strains of sangiovese). And so the idea took hold that primitivo had got to California via Italian migrants and mutated there – an idea that is now regarded as rather unlikely, after the discovery that an obscure Croatian red grape with the catchy name of crljenak kaštelanski, whose journey across the Adriatic to the heel of the Italian boot is at least easily explicable.
It hasn’t been easy to distinguish differences between zinfandel and primitivo that aren’t attributable to winemaking or choices or to the properties of the terroir. Nevertheless, rather like when you see syrah or shiraz on a bottle, the name used for the grape on the label indicates not just the provenance of the wine but the style that place of origin favours, indeed implies. Primitivo shares zinfandel’s ample fruit and propensity for high alcohol, but producers in Italy favour fresher acidity, a bit of extra dryness and a touch of bitterness on the finish compared to the bolder, jammier cousins across the ocean.
The best-known of Puglia’s zones of production for the grape is Manduria, under the Primitivo di Manduria DOC, nearly halfway between Taranto and Lecce, a designation that also produces a sweet wine known as Dolce Naturale (‘naturally sweet’, because of its method of production).
Tldr: Italian, indeed Puglian, name for zinfandel, producing wines on the whole a bit more structured and bitter than their Californian counterparts.
Susumaniello – beguilingly named, historically important, recently elusive and gradually emerging Pugliese grape of considerable interest to both the researcher and (more importantly) the consumer.
Susumaniello is yet another one of the wave of grapes enjoying something of a resurgence in the wake of the indigenous variety boom, where in response to the ubiquity of chardonnays and cabernets and so on, farmers all across the Old World began to carve niches for themselves by focusing more on the oft-forgotten grapes already in their vineyards. A lot of these efforts (for arneis, say, or oseleta) involved resuscitating grapes from near-extinction; for others however (trebbiano toscano might be a good example) the story was about taking a grape that had previously been used only for bulk production, and working hard with it to cut down yields in order to bring up quality. This was the case with the susumaniello vine, though with the extra wrinkle that for the first decade or so of its lifespan it will stubbornly persist in producing undistinguished, vaguely tart wine – but at around that mark, a switch flips and all of a sudden the berries grow thick and fat with flavour and complexity. Some producers have been finding ways to make it more worthwhile early on, but by and large this rather unusual rule holds.
When it does condescend to make wine of quality, however, you start to see why so many have chosen to persist with this vigorous, a little wild, but rewarding grapevine. The colour is deep, the tannins grainy, the aromas rustic and often a little gamey, which especially in fine wine production reveals itself in remarkably subtle leathery layers, all balanced out by the refreshing tang of a low pH score. With a bit of time in barrel they can also take on an appreciable lick of spice.
Tldr: reappreciated rich red which benefits from a bit of age on the vine as well as the bottle.
Tintilia – Molise is an unusual region, the newest in Italy after it split from Abruzzo in 1963, the second smallest both by area and population after Valle d’Aosta, and despite this still home to four different languages (as well as Italian there are speakers of not only the Molise brand of the Neapolitan language, but also a Slavic language called slavo molisano and the Italian peninsular dialect of Albanian, known as arbëresh). In agricultural terms it has long been associated with pasta, the quality of its durum wheat valued particularly highly, as well as rare delicacies such as the cicerchia (or grass pea). However, in recent years, it’s been the wine that has been gaining increased recognition, not least thanks to a very particular grape found practically nowhere else: tintilia.
Tintilia is yet another example of the Italian autochthonous grape revival, itself part of a wave of viticultural recrudescence across the Old World (and even in parts of the New) where old vine varieties that had been falling out of fashion in favour of ‘noble’ Gallic ubiquities like chardonnay and merlot have experienced – probably as a reaction against the dominance of ‘noble’ varieties – an enormous revival of interest and prominence. In tintilia’s case, it has very much benefited not only from this broader movement but from the accession to ‘region’ status of Molise itself, which was eager to find ways to distinguish itself from its larger neighbour (and former partner) of Abruzzo. Because, naturally, the grape literally synonymous with that region, namely montepulciano d’Abruzzo, is grown with remarkable success all over Molise as well, but as is always the case in Italy it’s far from alone – whereas tintilia was found virtually nowhere else, and locally-conscious Molisan producers began to focus on this rarest of aces in their hand.
Tintilia is a variety that could only have thrived in Molise’s rocky and mountainous terrain, where long, hot, dry summers ally with considerable altitudes to produce conditions conducive to both long maturation and the maintenance of acidity – something of a southern Italian trademark. Tintilia generally achieves quite warm alcohol levels and a certain sapidity of tannin, but not excessively marked in the manner of a raboso or a sagrantino, with a juicy character that keeps its trademark fruit long and lithe. More complex examples can develop a leathery and forest-floor quality, while judicious use of oak can bring out a hot spice element.
Tldr: trademark Molise red, a medium-big fruit-forward variety with no small pizzazz to it.
Uva di Troia – also known as nero di Troia, one of the lesser-known Pugliese red varieties, but one with an undeniable uniqueness and steadily enlarging reputation. Also known as nero di Troia (as some allege, rather cynically, to try and piggy-back off the success of nero d’Avola), it hails, naturally enough, from the town of Troia, itself found in the province of Foggia on the Campania border, but now diffused all around the heel of the Boot.
Uva di Troia was another of those victims of the 20th century, by all means a challenging variety to cultivate, and not worth the while to the impatient bulk industry of yesteryear. However, increased respect and attention for grapes unlucky enough not to be called ‘cabernet [something]’ has shot uva di Troia into not just prominence but borderline stardom, it’s difficult-to-coax-out flavour profile a surprise hit with the drinking public at home and abroad.
It is a tannic grape, a real mouth-coater, but with the acidity and body to not lapse into aggressive or astringent, rather supporting not only a cherryish fruit profile but also a definitely herbal complexity – herbiness that means many believe the variety does best without prominent oak influence, keeping it fresh instead. Responsible for quantities of much of Puglia’s more interesting blends, uva di Troia is perhaps best-shown in the Castel del Monte DOC, where some monovarietal bottlings have achieved international renown.
Tldr: tannic, herbal Puglia specialty, adding top notes to blends while intriguing on its own.
The internationals
Cabernet sauvignon (and cabernet franc) – it’s worth grouping these two together, as not only are they very similar and indeed related (cabernet sauvignon being the offspring of cabernet franc together with sauvignon blanc, hence the name) but travel together extensively as well, cab franc generally showing up wherever cab sauv does – everywhere outside of France, that is. From Napa to Barossa via Sonoma and Stellenbosch, both varietally and as a component of Bordeaux-style blends, cabernet sauvignon has taken over the world, with cabernet franc often close behind either to lend a hand or, just occasionally, finding itself the star.
When looking at the story of the cabernets in Italy, the most obvious place to start is of course Tuscany, where in 1968 a wine came out that changed not only the Tuscan or even Italian wine landscape but that of the rest of the world too. Mario Incisa della Rocchetta had been making a blend of the two (predominantly sauvignon) in the style of the Graves subzone of Bordeaux since the late 1940s, but it was strictly for his own personal consumption, something of a side hobby. It wasn’t until his son Nicolò along with his nephew, one Piero Antinori, persuaded him of the extraordinary quality and potential of these wines that the decision was made to release the wine under the estate’s name of Tenuta San Guido. The wine was given a name that reflected the stoniness of the territory in the Bolgheri vineyards, ‘Sassicaia’, and the ‘Super Tuscans’ were born.
Piero Antinori would follow suit with his ‘Solaia’, a heavily cab sauv blend in what we call the ‘Left Bank’ style (that’s the Left Bank of the Gironde, rather than the philosophy-thronged Seine), while younger brother Lodovico would get in on the act himself with his now-legendary ‘Ornellaia’. Cab franc, meanwhile, had also come along for the ride, acting as a significant blending partner for many of these superstar wines, as well as in more Right Bank iterations (more on which later) and, just occasionally, as the protagonist, as in Tenuta Hortense’s ‘Clinio’.
But the story of the cabs in Italy doesn’t end with Tuscany – indeed, it doesn’t even begin there. The Bordeaux varieties have had a presence in the Veneto for centuries, where they provide reliable ripening and relatively high quality (at least, value for money) in much of the humid, relatively low-altitude vineyards of the marca trevigiana. It’s probably in the Montello-Asolo area, however, that the variety reaches its apogee, with many wineries following in the footsteps of Loredan Venegazzù’s ‘Capo di Stato’, so named because of the praise the wine received in the early 1960s from none other than Charles de Gaulle (if de Gaulle is praising a non-French Bordeaux-style wine, you know it must have something going for it!). The Colle Euganei would probably dispute this pre-eminence however, with producers such as Vignalta giving the Asolani a run for their money. Cab franc also does rather well in the Veneto, its earlier ripening and higher natural acidity making it well adapted to producing perfumed wines of good structure.
Elsewhere, Sicily has become another intriguing homeland for cabernet sauvignon, where the dry heat helps the notoriously late-ripening variety achieve alcoholic and phenolic maturity seldom heard of elsewhere. In direct contrast, the cab sauv found in the Dolomites of Alto Adige are among the most majestic and savoury on earth, getting to a level of crunchiness only possible at those mountainous heights.
Tldr: Bordeaux stalwarts planted throughout Italy, cabernet sauvignon in particular responsible for some of the country’s (especially Tuscany’s) most prestigious – and expensive – wines.
Carmenere – dropping the accents and turning from carménère to car-men-eh-reh, this lesser-sung Bordeaux grape came over with its bigger-name compadres in the time of Napoleon, and has persisted in spite of unfashionability and indeed virtual anonymity for much of its history. However, there has been a real spike in interest for this variety in the Veneto, itself responding to a remarkable renaissance for the vine elsewhere – but not, in fact, in its native France, nor even in its native hemisphere.
It transpires, rather, that a world away in Chile much vine coverage that had been assumed to be merlot was in fact hardly-known carmenere, a revelation that practically overnight elevated this grape from obscurity to the signature hope of a whole nation’s viticulture. Benefitting from warmer, longer summers, carmenere turned out to be capable of much fleshier and more generous fruit than anyone had thought possible in the Gironde, while retaining considerably more tannic structure than merlot tends to achieve.
Inspired by this producers all around the central Veneto decided to put a lot more effort into their own carmenere vines, and in the process have made themselves surely the European centre of the variety, as much like in the Andes the dependably long summers bring a maturity to the grapes that brings out remarkably intense berryish flavours, as well as a distinct savoury-smoky element highly valued by its fans. Indeed, Inama’s ‘Oratorio di San Lorenzo’, from the Colli Berici near Vicenza, is probably the top carmenere monovarietal produced in all of Europe.
Tldr: long-neglected Bordeaux variety rescued by Chile, now making star wines in the Veneto that resemble merlots with extra smoke and structure.
Merlot – one of the world’s most popular grapes, another Bordeaux superstar, grown everywhere from Brazil to Beijing and loved even more widely, this most classic of classic French grapes underwent a sudden and unfortunate reversal of fortune when, in 2004’s Sideways, wine-loving character Miles makes, well, an extremely negative comment about it. Sales quite literally fell, though this of course reflected a feeling that merlot had become a bit too well known, a bit basic, a bit obvious, that people were looking further afield than its flatteringly soft, plummy flavours.
But here’s the thing – even in that movie, Miles is protesting too hard. His favourite wine is Château Cheval Blanc, which, as he surely knows, is a blend of merlot and the only other grape he badmouths in the film, namely cabernet franc. Because – at least this writer suspects – inside every merlot-hater is a secret merlot-lover, just waiting for the right bottle to realise it.
And sure, that bottle might as well be Cheval Blanc, or Pomerol neighbour Château Pétrus, or indeed any number of Libournais (Right-Bank) producers who make primarily-merlot wines of often startling quality. But the grape has shown that it can flourish outside of the Gironde estuary, naturally in California, but also in Oregon, Washington, Chile, New Zealand, even Canada, as its capacity for terroir-expression while remaining reliably generously fruity (not to mention its early-ripening habits) has proved irresistible to winemakers the world over.
Including – very much including – in Italy. In addition to its utility as a blending grape, contributing its trademark fleshy pluminess to partnerships with grapes as diverse as corvina, sangiovese and nero d’Avola, merlot has also taken the starring role in some of Italy’s most prestigious (and most expensive) wines. In particular, the Ornellaia estate’s ‘Masseto’, made on the same incredibly rare blue clay found in Pomerol, one the priciest wines per bottle in the whole peninsula. Elsewhere, blends with cabernet franc à la Libournaise are, well, de rigueur, while intriguing blends with above-mentioned native grapes, especially in Sicily, are producing ever-more fascinating results.
As for our neck of the woods – well, the story of merlot in the northeast is very like that of the other Bordeaux varieties, a centuries-old presence known mainly for churning out vaguely fruity wine-type juice, but in recent decades becoming the centre of increasingly respected efforts. Cooler-climate alpine and dolomitic merlots from Friuli and Trentino-Alto Adige showcase the grape’s oft-neglected mineral side; meanwhile, even in the Venetian lagoon, the winery-stroke-Michelin-starred-restaurant Venissa have staked their red reputation on merlot, their Santa Cristina blends typically comprising 80% of the variety (with the other approx. 20% supplied by cabernet sauvignon), revealing a distinctly hay-and-honey vibe that you don’t often find from this most storied of varieties.
Tldr: author of some of Italy’s most glitzy and most interesting reds and red blends.
Petit verdot – generally assumed to be another Bordeaux import (and it undoubtedly is in its modern version), the almost radical unsuitability of petit verdot to the Gironde has many speculating that it was introduced by the Romans and remained virtually unchanged over that time. Certainly its name is a bit of a giveaway, this ‘little green’ grape proving a very stubborn ripener in the cool of the Atlantic estuary, so stubborn in fact that many Bordeaux vines have simply been ripped up, especially in favour of more reliable merlot vines.
But as it travelled, so its reputation began to change. Petit verdot, you see, wasn’t unripenable – it just wanted longer, warmer summers than it had hitherto been getting. And while South Australia was probably the first to put it on the maps of a startled and confused wine public, it’s also been finding more and more success closer to home, both in Spain and – of course – in Italy, where it doesn’t just fulfil its habitual role in Bordeaux blends but increasingly finds itself pushed to centre-stage.
While Tuscan plantings were (naturally) the earliest to find use, it’s really in Sicily and especially in Lazio that the grape has been able to shine. Far from the harsh, unripe, green flavours of too-often back home, fully-ripe petit verdot’s deep, dark, almost blackly purple colour is a good indicator of its flavour profile, incredibly crunchy and dense berry fruit with a trademark mineral note often described as ‘pencil shavings’.
Tldr: difficult, sometimes tough Bordeaux variety allowed to develop to voluptuous ripeness by Italy’s warmer climate, particularly in the dry summers of Lazio.
Syrah – the great grape of the Rhȏne, elsewhere known as the mighty shiraz of Australia, a huge varietal favourite from cool-climate New Zealand and Washington State to the long hot summers of Stellenbosch and California, and finding itself more and more at home in unexpected corners around the Old World of Europe and the Middle East.
Including Italy! Syrah in the Boot doesn’t have the long pedigree of some of the other French-origin grapes, but it’s swiftly gaining in prestige and respect. The biggest plantings in the country are found in Sicily, where some people theorise that the grape originates (noting the possible correspondence between the word syrah and the ancient city of Syracuse). Sicilian syrah is often good value, and tends towards the dark chocolate style drinkers the world over have come to associate with the viscous, purple-black liquid of South Australia’s Barossa Valley, whose own climate rather resembles that of the island (though hotter). There are also very interesting plantings in Lazio which, rather like in Sicily, exploit the relative dryness of the climate to induce a certain level of tannic chewiness in the wine.
But it is probably in Tuscany that Italian syrah reaches its apogee, and nowhere else in Tuscany more than the Cortona DOC in the province of Arezzo. Cortona wines must be effectively varietal (that is, minimum 85%) from cabernet sauvignon, merlot, sangiovese, or syrah – and it is the syrah that is frequently believed to be the best of the bunch, reaching a peppery, even ethereal aromatic intensity to match the hallmark earth-and-leather character for so long associated with the great syrah homelands of Hermitage and Côte Rôtie.
Tldr: occasional plantings thrive in the hotter, drier territories of Italy, producing a style somewhere between French majesty and Australian power.
Pinot noir – and so we come to it, if not the world’s most famous or even most consumed grape, quite possibly the most beloved , the one with the most devoted fans and the most unassailable mythic status. As well as being the grape wholly responsible for one of France’s three superstar regions – Burgundy – it is also co-responsible for a second, being one of two black grapes to accompany chardonnay in the making of Champagne (the other being the rather more obscure pinot meunier). But it is its presence in the region between these two that starts us on our journey, and that will land us back in home climes.
You see, it might not be the first association that springs to mind from the prompt ‘wine of the Alsace’, but pinot noir is that region’s red island amid its sea of world class whites, a member of the advanced pinot family – pinot blanc and pinot gris – all of which have a presence in the region. And it is from Alsace that these grapes advanced first eastwards, to become known as Grauburgunder (pinot gris), Weißburgunder (pinot blanc) and Spätburgunder (pinot noir, sometimes also Blauburgunder) in German, in the lands that are now Germany, Switzerland and Austria – from which they would eventually travel south of the Alps to reach Italian territory. That pinots bianco and (especially) grigio have flourished in the north of the boot is no secret; pinot nero, however, remains just a little bit more niche.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth searching out! In particular the alpine regions have proven happy territory for pinot, which makes sense given the grape’s preference for cooler climates (indeed, despite their opposing reputations with regard to finickiness in the vineyard, both pinot noir and chardonnay will produce their best results in places that, in some way, resemble their Burgundian homeland). In general terms the Sudtirolese pinot nero, up in the Dolomites and Alps towards the border with Austria, very much resemble that ‘Blauburgunder’ style, a bit of a sweet and slate thing, while that from Lombardy and especially (naturally) from the Valle d’Aosta tends strongly towards the French style, with its extra savouriness and earthy character.
However, it is in a different style, especially elsewhere in Lombardy, that pinot nero reaches perhaps its most prestigious levels. Champagne-method sparkling wines such as the Lombard Franciacorta and the Dolomitic Trento DOC use pinot nero and chardonnay substantially, often with more reliable fruit-forwardness and vintage character than is generally achieved in the north of France. It was this that really put ‘pinot nero’ on the map, and allowed many of those wonderful still red wines to follow in its wake.
Tldr: Burgundian legend made in both French and Austrian styles up the northern mountains, and capable of extraordinary refinement in sparkling Champagne-a-likes.
Some confusing categories
Bonarda – a grape made famous by its plantings in Argentina, where for so long it was a rather rustic bulk grape but has now burst into life, making for racy, frisky monovarietals that can even repay aging in the cellar. But there’s a problem with this – it’s not actually bonarda.
OK, it is now actually bonarda. Having acquired it, it’s got as much right to the name as any other variety. The point is that it wasn’t originally called bonarda. What likely happened was that, somehow, the Savoie variety known as douce noir (and in California as charbono) found its way to Argentina, where the country’s enormous Italian immigrant population took to calling it by a grape name that made sense to them. Quite why will probably never be known, but that’s almost certainly what happened.
What were they naming it after then? Well, there are two main grapes in Italy which could have onomastically inspired the communities across the Atlantic. The first, and the one most commonly listed as simply ‘bonarda’, is the now-rare bonarda piemontese, sometimes also called bonarda di Monferrato, both of which indicate accurately enough its probable homeland. It is mainly deployed in a few pretty bucolic blends, where it adds a certain crunch and a touch of aroma.
The more interesting by far, however, and certainly the more important, is the grape we’ve already mentioned known as croatina, a grape diffused all across the north of Italy (including in the Valpolicella) and which takes centre stage in the Bonarda dell’Oltrepò Pavese wine, a fresh, fullish wine with a lick of violets about it.
But this habit of calling grapes ‘bonarda’ for want of any other name doesn’t stop there. There are, by many counts, at least three others, and really there could be many more, informally named thus, depending on who you ask. You can see where the Italian migrants, newly arrived in Argentina and stumbling across some unknown vine decided that there really was only one sensible course of action.
Tldr: set of interesting, crunchy grapes, none of which is the interesting, crunchy grape found in Argentina.
Groppello – the name of four different varieties found across Lombardy, Alto Adige, and indeed Veneto, one of which you’re much, much more likely to encounter than the others (especially if you’re on holiday in Milan), but which all find ways of cropping up in unsuspected places.
That most common variety is sometimes called groppellone and sometimes called groppello gentile, and it is considered the most important native red grape of Lombardy, a region whose most famous wines tend to be made from grapes made famous elsewhere like nebbiolo or pinot nero. Curiously, for a well-planted autochthonous black grape, its main usage in production is for rosé wine, for which it’s well-suited thanks to its high acidity and pleasing strawberryness.
The other two groppelli are much less likely to appear on labels. Of them, Lake Garda’s groppello di Mocasino is more likely to be found as a monovarietal, making deep, fragrant, sometimes balsamic-like wines. It is not as common, however, as groppello di Revò, from the Trentino village of the same name, is sometimes bottled on its own, its late-ripening fruit containing remarkable acidity, whose tangy wines are often put into small oak barrels to round them out a little. It is usually found in blends, however, usually with the likes of marzemino and the increasingly-popular sangiovese, and very often as a rosé.
Tldr: most likely to be Lombard rosé, but could be red or pink from Garda or Trentino as well.
Malvasia – incredibly, not content with confusing the wine world with endless lists of unrelated white grapes, the Venetians saw fit to throw a red one in too. As we mentioned in the white grapes encyclopaedia, the malvasia ‘family’ is more like an adopted family, with various incredibly different grapes grouped together under the same umbrella because they were imported from or via the Venetian-owned Greek port city of Monemvasia, garbled by the denizens of La Serenissima into ‘Malvasia’. And, while they’re predominantly white varieties, a red grape snuck in there as well – or better to say, inevitably, red grapes plural.
But how many red grapes plural is in fact a matter of intense debate, as various ampelographers and traditionalists line up to debate the status of the two important malvasie nere in Puglia, malvasia nera di Lecce and malvasia nera di Brindisi. In general, the farmers themselves are convinced that these two varieties are different in spite of the DNA evidence as yet returning no genetic disparities, and certainly they seem to produce different results, with the Lecce version a tighter, tougher wine than the early-ripening Brindisi, with its cacao and flowers thing going on (the Lecce is virtually always blended with negroamaro). Malvasia nera di Brindisi, while not as common as some of the other big name Puglia red varieties, is nonetheless capable of chunky wines of real interest. (Fun fact, there’s also malvasia nera di Lecce planted in Tuscany which has turned out to be, of all things, the Rioja grape tempranillo.)
But it’s often agreed that the top examples of wine made from malvasia nera grapes are found in Piedmont, specifically in the two DOCs in Italy set aside for production of grapes carrying that name: Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco and Malvasia di Casorzio d’Asti. Malvasia di Castelnuovo is sweet, sparkling, refreshing wine made mainly from a grape also known in full as malvasia nera di Schierano with input from another variety known as malvasia nera lunga, sometimes called malvasia rosa and often confused with the Schierano variety but significantly higher yielding and more strongly scented. Malvasia di Casorzio is also the name of the grape, a wine that can be made in any number styles from dry to sweet, still to sparkling, and indeed in the light, sweet, -à980gftmanner of Moscato d’Asti (what kind will always be indicated on the bottle).
Finally, you might occasionally come across malvasia nera di Basilicata from, well, Basilicata, with its very high acidity and impressive alcoholic content, but you’re much more likely to find it in blends with grapes like aglianico under labels such as Basilicata IGT.
Tldr: confusing and debated group of red grapes that are often particularly adapted to making light fizzy reds and which are also sometimes tempranillo.
Lambrusco – now. This one’s complicated. Lambrusco is the world’s most famous sparkling red wine, made in every style from dry to sweet via the traditional (and very popular) semi-sweet rendering, and is often described as made from a grape of the same name. But the reality is that there are at least six standard varieties of Lambrusco, some of which are especially associated with protected geographical subzones, while in the rest of Italy at least sixty different vines known as lambrusco have been identified. Which, to be clear, is definitely crazy. However, let’s focus on those original six, as those are by far the most grown, the most likely to be found in the wild, and the most important to know how to decipher.
Lambrusco the famous sparkling red is associated with three towns in Emilia-Romagna and one in Lombardy: Modena, Parma, and Reggio Emilia in the former, and Mantua in the latter (which in fact is found near the Lombard-Emilian border anyway). The six grapes, of which any number are generally blended together – without indication – to make Lambrusco wine are found in varying quantities across these regions. Their names are: lambrusco di Sorbara, lambrusco salamino, lambrusco grasparossa, lambrusco maestri, lambrusco marani, and lambrusco montericco.
Lambrusca di Sorbara is also the name of an important protected subzone of the Modena area of production. The only permitted varieties in the zone are Sorbara and salamino, and of these 60% must be Sorbara at least (and is usually more). Sorbara is considered one of the finest of the lambruschi, notably fresh and capable of a great range of colour, from deepish purple to positively rosé.
Lambrusco salamino itself is the most planted of the varieties, deriving its name from the unusually tubular shape of its grape cluster, seen (in a very Emilia-Romagna kind of way) to resemble a salami. It is particularly important, and also probably reaches its zenith, in the Lambrusco Salamino di Santa Croce subzone, close to Sorbara in the Modena area. Its very pronounced acidity makes it particularly useful in the production of the red fizz, in particular offsetting the sweetness of the demisecco style.
Lambrusco grasparossa is mostly known thanks to the subzone of Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro, the other side of Modena from Sorbara, at least 85% of which must be made from its eponymous varietal (and is often varietal). Grasparossa is probably the most tannic varietal, making it especially suited to the dry, serious style of the Castelvetro wines, but which in its demisecco form help make it a seriously brilliant pairing for dark chocolate.
Lambrusco maestri is probably the most widely planted lambrusco, traditionally found as far south as Calabria and even as far afield as the southern hemisphere frontiers of New World wine. Generally agreed to be the most intense of the varieties, it is indeed thought to be too intense for monovarietal production, lacking the subtlety and refinement of some of the others, and is thus blended with them in production zones like the large Lambrusco Reggiano to add reinforcement and undergirding.
Lambrusco marani is, despite its genuinely blueberryish appearance, remarkably light in tannins and high in acidity, its job in blends being the yin to lambrusco maestri’s yang in that it adds freshness and raciness. So light is it in style that it can even be made to use blanc de noirs.
Lambrusco montericco is a traditional variety of the Reggio Emilia area, whose small grapes produce wine rather like that of lambrusco marani in lightness and freshness, but which also pack an extra aromatic punch, with better examples turning out positively floral.
Tldr: variety of of varieties which contribute in different ways to different iterations of Lambrusco, the world’s best-known red fizz.
In closing
The red grapes of Italy have come a long way since the ancient days of being shoved into rough and rustic field blends, or even the more recent old days when they were frequently admixed (or perhaps rather doctored) with white varieties to produce higher volume of thin, light, tart, basic stuff. Indeed the red varieties have become the country’s calling card for many wine lovers around the world, from towering nebbiolo of Barolo to the seductive corvina of Amarone, the aristocratic sangiovese of Brunello di Montalcino to the fun-loving primitivo of Manduria.
But the really remarkable thing is how deep a squad of reds Italy has. If this article has shown anything clearly, it’s that the sheer unbelievable variety of black grapes across the country is one of the country’s real viticultural strengths. As with the whites, the slow but unstoppable process of rediscovering native grapes has added such dizzying variety to the world wine scene that it’s almost impossible to keep up, even for pros like us here at Vineria all’Amarone. But hey, anything worth doing will be something you can’t cover all of in a single lifetime – you can be sure that Italian red wine will continue to grow, to delight, and indeed to surprise.
Photo credits to: Sangiovese | Alghero DOC Wines Consortium, Rona Glass Slovakia Aram Red Wine Glasses 500ml, Set of 6 | Modern Quests, LAGREIN | Smooth favorite wine from South Tyrol | Superiore.de, Interesting facts about Nebbiolo | WineTourism.com, Rondinella Ron Visp – Spiazzi Vivai, Buy Teroldego Grafted Grape Vines Online – Double A Vineyards, Marvellous montepulciano – The Real Review, Everything you need to know about Aglianico – Fine Taste, Vitigno Frappato | Mandrarossa, Special Primitivo coming from fifth generation farmer Berton CostamagnaMusto Wine Grape Company, LLC. – Blog, Merlot: A Primer – Advinetures.ca, Lambrusco autentico e irresistibile | Cantina Mingazzini,
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