Italian Wine For Dummies

Mary Ewing-Mulligan, Ed McCarthy

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780764553554
• eBook ISBN: 9781118069592
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

"A must-have book for anyone who is serious about Italian wines."
—Lidia Bastianich, host of PBS?s Lidia's Italian Table

"I have yet to encounter more knowledgeable guides to...Italian wine."
—Piero Antinori, President, Antinori Wines

"Bravo to Ed and Mary! This book shows their love for Italy, the Italian producers, and the great marriage of local foods with local wines. Here is a great book that presents the information without intimidation."
—Piero Selvaggio, VALENTINO Restaurant

Right now, Italy is the most exciting wine country on earth. The quality of Italian wines has never been higher and the range of wines has never been broader. Even better, the types of Italian wines available outside of Italy have never been greater. But with all these new Italian wines and wine zones not to mention all the obscure grape varieties, complicate blends, strange names and restrictive wine laws. Italian wines are also about he most challenging of all to master. The time has come for comprehensive, up-to-date guides to Italian wines.

Authored by certified wine educators and authors Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, Italian Wine For Dummies introduces you to the delectable world of fine Italian wine. It shows you how to:

• Translate wine labels
• Identify great wine bargains
• Develop your own wine tastes
• Match Italian wines with foods

Here's everything you need to know to enjoy the best Tuscans, Sicilians, Abruzzese and other delicious Italian wines. This lighthearted and informative guide explores:

• The styles of wine made in Italy and the major grape varieties used to make them
• How the Italian name their wines, the complicated laws governing how names are given and the meanings of common label terminology
• Italy's important wine regions including a region-by-region survey of the best vineyards and their products
• A guide to pronouncing Italian wine terms and names and how to order Italian wines in restaurants

For Italians, wine ( vino ) is food ( alimentari ) and food is love ( amore ). And you can never have enough love in your life. So, order a copy of Italian Wine For Dummies, today and get ready to share the love!

Part I

The Big Picture of Italian Wine

In this part . . .

I f ever a country was born to make wine, it’s Italy. The land is covered with hillsides, just begging for grapevines. And what grapevines they are! Ancient varieties, native varieties, French and Spanish varieties, internationally-popular varieties, and unpronounceable (to foreigners) varieties—together making every type of wine under the sun. It’s no wonder that Italy—along with France—has been the world leader in wine production since ancient times.

Italy has so many wines that you could spend a (happy) lifetime mastering Italian wine. These first few chapters set you on that journey, explaining Italy’s natural wine resources, its grape varieties, and its wine laws so that you can glimpse the big picture of where you’re headed.

Chapter 1

Born to Make Wine

In This Chapter

A leader of the pack

Forty centuries of winemaking experience

Italy’s wine diversity formula

The trend toward quality

W hen most people think of Italy, they think of food. (History, art, or fast cars might be other associations—but food would have to be right up there, near the top of the list.)

As central as food is to Italy’s personality, so is wine. For most Italians, wine is food, no less essential to every meal than bread or family. Wine, in fact, is family, and community, because nearly every Italian either knows someone who makes wine or makes wine himself.

Wine to Boot

The Italian peninsula, with its fan-like top and its long, boot-like body, has the most recognizable shape of any country on earth. But its recognition exceeds its actual size. Italy is a small land; the whole country is less than three-quarters the size of California.

Despite its small size, Italy’s role in the world of wine is huge:

Italy produces more wine than any other country on earth, in many years. (When Italy isn’t the world’s number one wine producer, it’s number two, behind France.) Italy’s annual wine production is generally about 1.5 billion gallons, the equivalent of more than 8 billion bottles! Nearly 30 percent of all the world’s wine comes from Italy.

Italy has more vineyard land than any other country except Spain. Vines grow in every nook and cranny of the peninsula and the islands.

Italy boasts dozens of native grape varieties, many of which are successful only in Italy.

Italy produces hundreds of wines—nearly 1,000 different types, we’d say.

Although the land called Italy has a long, proud history, the country became a unified nation only in 1861, and has existed in its present form only since 1919, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceded certain northern territories to Italy after World War I. Politically, Italy today consists of 20 regions, similar to states—18 on the mainland and two islands; these 20 political regions are also Italy’s wine regions. (Figure 1-1 shows Italy’s 20 regions.) Because of the country’s relative youth, diverse cultures exist in different parts of the country, and regional pride runs stronger than national pride. Italy’s wines reflect these diverse cultures.

From the Alps to almost Africa

When we think about Italy’s shape, location, and topography, we have to chuckle at the improbability of it all. Italy starts in the Alps but ends fairly close to Africa; it has a long, long seacoast but very little flat land; it has three major mountain ranges dividing it from other countries and segregating its regions from one another. Italy has everything, all together, in a small package of disjointed pieces that’s isolated from everything around it. (Was the Creator playing a hoax?)

The mountain ranges are the Alps in the northwest, separating Italy from Switzerland and France; the Dolomites, actually part of the Alps, separating northeastern Italy from Austria; and the Apennines, starting in the northwest and running like a spine down the Italian boot, separating the regions of the east coast from those of the west.

Figure 1-1: Italy’s 20 wine regions.

Italy’s major expanse of flat land is the Po River Valley, which begins in western Piedmont and extends eastward until the Po empties into the Adriatic Sea just north of Emilia-Romagna’s border with the Veneto (see Figure 1-1). Most of Italy’s rice, grain, maize, and fruit crops come from this area; the rest of the country grows olive trees, garden vegetables, and, of course, grapes. In most of Italy, you can’t travel five miles without seeing vines.

Wine from Day One

Grape growing is an historic occupation in Italy. When Phoenician traders arrived in Puglia 4,000 years ago, wine already existed there. The Etruscans grew wine grapes in Central Italy from the 8th to the 4th century B.C. By the 3rd century B.C., grapes grew in much of today’s Italy, and the Romans get credit for dispersing the vine throughout western Europe.

Diverse conditions, diverse wines

What makes Italy an ideal and unique territory for growing grapes is precisely its improbable combination of natur...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : The Big Picture of Italian Wine
• Chapter 1: Born to Make Wine
• Chapter 2: Grapes from Near and Far
• Chapter 3: The Language of the Label
• Part II : The Wine Regions of Northern Italy
• Chapter 4: The Wines of Piedmont
• Chapter 5: Other Northwest Regions
• Chapter 6: North-Central Italy
• Chapter 7: Northeastern Italy
• Part III : The Wine Regions of Central Italy
• Chapter 8: The Wines of Tuscany
• Chapter 9: The Wines of Central Italy
• Part IV : The Wine Regions of Southern Italy
• Chapter 10: The Wines of Southern Italy
• Chapter 11: Sicily and Sardinia
• Part V : The Part of Tens
• Chapter 12: Ten Commonly-Asked Questions about Italian Wines
• Chapter 13: Ten Common Italian Wine Myths Exposed
• Part VI : Appendixes
• Appendix A: Pronunciation Guide to Italian Wine Names and Terms
• Appendix B: Italian Wine Vintage Chart: 1980 to 1999