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Natural wine has been around for centuries but has only recently taken the mainstream spirit world by storm. Akin to the general Italian principle of eating whole and minimally processed foods from the earth, natural wine sings a similar tune. Inspired by his Italian family’s additive-free wine, Dante DeCicco, co-founded the Natural Wine Shoppe, an...

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The Covid-19 pandemic will not affect Italy’s leadership as the world’s leading wine producer. In fact, the 2020 grape harvest should reach 47.2 million hectolitres, down only 1% compared to 2019. A minimal drop which will still ensure Italy’s leadership in production in 2020, given that France and Spain are expected to reach 43.4 and 43 million he...

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Saturday morning, on a little cobblestoned street outside a wine cellar in Italy’s Chianti region, people are gathering with their glasses at the tasting table. Renzo Marinai vineyard and agriturismo snuggles into the hills of the Conca d'Oro–the “golden basin”–Tuscany’s answer to Burgundy’s Cote d’Or. Once a heartland for ripening wheat, the sun-d...

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On Monday and Tuesday of this week (September 21-22, 2020), the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce South Central held its first-ever virtual Taste of Italy trade tasting in cities across Texas. Participating winemakers and food producers were asked to ship samples to the U.S. earlier this year. Texas-based food and wine professionals and food and wi...

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“I have always found the Vermentino wines from Sardinia very compelling,” explains Craig Camp, general manager of Troon Vineyard, Applegate Valley, Oregon. Rumored of Spanish origin, this white grape is typically associated with the Italian island of Sardinia, the Tuscan coast (Bolgheri), and the Ligurian coast. Additionally, in the Mediterranean,...

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Over the last few months I’ve shared some wines from Calabria, a wine region of Italy that is one of the lesser discovered one that I love to explore and share.  Today is the first day I’m sharing a wine from the Greco Bianco grape and it’s a late harvest one from Tenuta Iuzzolini.  The Winery ~ Tenuta Iuzzolini  Four sibilings, Pasquale, Diego, An...

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Italy—sometimes called one big vineyard—is a mosaic of microclimates, from mountainous to coastal, Alpine to sun-baked. They vary so much that it makes little sense to speak of “Italian wine” in and of itself.  “Respecting the land, the product that comes from it, and respecting the people and tradition from these lands—these guiding principles hav...

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Italy's winemakers have been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. As harvest season begins, how are they faring? Piedmont-based wine expert Evan Byrne spoke to producers about the financial aid available and their experiences so far. As far as financial assistance is concerned, different proposals were mentioned, but many producers were sketchy on t...

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Un’astronave interrata nel Chianti fiorentino. Una tartaruga nel cuore della campagna umbra. Una bolla di vetro sui colli piemontesi. Dalla Maremma alle Langhe passando per il Veneto e la Sicilia, il fenomeno delle cantine d'autore ha conquistato tante delle case vinicole del Bel Paese. Le nuove ‘cattedrali del vino’, firmate dai grandi nomi dell’a...

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Anyone with a lot of time on their hands who might do a search of my wine columns will find the largest percentage, though by no means the majority, of wines I recommend are Italian. My reasons for this have little to do with my own Italian-American background, for in my house when I was growing up wine was a sometimes thing at the dinner table and...

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