Learning Italian Wines in One Year?

Hi everyone. First real post, other than the three on Berserker Day, after reading/lurking since 2011. I’m interested in diving deeper into one country. I’ve chosen Italy for a couple of reasons…I’ve taken a few trips there, and my wife is Sicilian and loves to cook Italian food. We’ve always enjoyed the food/wine pairings of Italy when there, but I’d like to learn more about the different regions and varietals.

I had a couple of questions to help get me started…any recommendations or comments would be extremely well appreciated. I’d like to keep the wines under $50/bottle, if possible, but would go up to $100 for ‘not to miss’ producers or wines that would showcase a particular varietal/region. Would prefer ‘traditional’ producers, but definitely open to more modern producers, if you feel they are now a good representation of the region.

Let’s assume buying/tasting 3 bottles per week on average, so around 150-160 bottles in the year, if that helps.

  1. Using one year, how would you break down the regions by number of weeks/months spent in each one? I know the major regions will have many sub-regions, so I know this could be difficult. Just looking for a general idea of how much time to spend in each region.

  2. What producers would you recommend for each region or sub-region? I know there are a number of topics/posts on individual regions, but I’m hoping others would appreciate a centralized list as well. Even links to other topics would be extremely helpful as well.

Thank you again in advance for your help!

Not sure if this list covers the regions fully, so please feel free to edit/add/remove, as necessary.

• Veneto
• Tuscany
• Piedmont
• Emilia-Romagna
• Lombardy
• Umbria
• Abruzzo
• Trentino Alto-Adige
• Friuli-Venezia Giulia
• Marche
• Puglia
• Lazio
• Sicily
• Sardinia
• Campania
• Liguria
• Calabria
• Molise
• Basilicata
• Valle d’Aosta

Oh, this’ll be a super interesting/fun thread. [popcorn.gif]

OH man, that’s a big ask, but I love this. I traveled to Italy to study wine back in 08 (I remember there was a rally in Florence when Obama won the election). For reasons of either poor/limited wines or redundancy with neighboring region, I would skip Molise and Lazio, you could even cut out Liguria and Calabria but I gave them 1 each. Don’t forget Sardinia though! Your 100$ limit won’t be an issue outside of Veneto, Tuscany, or Piedmont. Even 50$ can get you close to the best in most of these regions. Some of my sub-headings are wines and some are regions so sorry if it’s confusing. My favorites are Sicily, Friuli, Tuscany, and Piemonte. Other areas like Valle d’aosta are just plain wonderful, but also quite small and so don’t need many weeks.

Are you actually planning on traveling and exploring these regions over the course of a year? Or just buying and tasting wines over that time period?


Here is my breakdown, not to be read as a ranking however…

*Veneto - 3
Valpollicella/Amarone, Prosecco, Soave
*Tuscany - 8
Bolgheri/Maremma, Chianti, Montalcino, VNd Montepulciano
*Piedmont - 8
Babaresco, Barolo, Gattinara, Carema, Ghemme, Roero
*E-R - 1
Some interesting stuff here, Sangiovese and Lambrusco are worth exploring
*Lombardy - 2
Franciacorta, Valtellina
*Umbria - 3
Montefalco, Orvieto
*Abruzzo - 1
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
*Marche - 1
Verdicchio
*Trentino A-A - 3
*Friuli - 3
Amazing white wines
*Marche - 0
*Puglia - 1
Some solid reds, Primitivo
*Lazio - 0
*Sicily - 5
Etna, Pantelleria
*Campania - 4
*Liguria - 1
*Calabria - 1
*Molise - 0
*Basilicata - 2
Aglianico de Vulture
*Valle d’Aosta - 3
Great alpine region, beautiful crisp white wines, some sparklers
*Sardegna - 2
Cannonau, Monica

If you’re serious, consider this program:

This Website provides some interesting commentary on Italian Wine and Food…I also think that John Fodera posts here on Berserkers.

there are some great Italian wine courses available online. I think the Napa wine academy has one. But I think in a year its maybe better to choose the MAJOR regions of Italy and get to know them well. For example, Piedmont alone has Barolo, barbaresco, alto-piemonte, barbera, dolcetto, freisa… Thats 10% of your wine right there if you have ONE of each. and that won’t get you to know it much. So I would delve into:

Piedmont:
Barolo, Barbaresco, langhe nebbiolo, barbera, dolcetto, freisa

Tuscany:
Brunello, rosso di Montalcino, chianti, chianti classico

Veneto:
Prosecco, soave classico, amarone, valpolicella

Sicily:
Mount Etna reds and whites

Franciocorta sparklers, verdicchio, trentodoc.

then you can have several examples of each to get a feel for the region instead of just tasting one of each. You could spend a lifetime learning Italian wines (people have and do!) and not ever taste all the examples! Thats what makes it such a fun wine country!

Let’s say you went with Rory’s plan. The next question would be - how to pick producers/bottlings? Some regions will generate a lot of suggestions (eg. for Barolo, I’d suggest Francesco Rinaldi’s base Barolo as a good example. Barbaresco try Produttori ‘Torre’) others fewer.

You could do your own research by joining Vinous - a wine review web site - that reviews many Italian wine regions. You will get plenty of ideas of what to try there.

“One country. One year.”

Is this another post about Millennial “goals.”?? [pillow-fight.gif]

Kyle–I’m hoping so…I assume there are plenty of people here that drink Italian wines frequently, so trying to tap into their wisdom.

Rory–this is extremely helpful! After reading your post, I forgot to add the number of bottles I’m planning on trying/buying per week. I added it to the original post…approx. 3 bottles/week, or 150-160 bottles/year., though I’m sure I’ll taste more per week when I include wines by the glass at restaurants and public tastings at wine shops. I’m hoping I can get a decent sense of the types of wines/varietals in each region…enough to be able to speak somewhat intelligently about wines when seeing them on a wine list, wine store, etc., or find a number of producers/wines to keep for the long haul.

That being said, would your estimates of number of weeks spent in each region still hold? For example, would two cases of wine be enough to get a sense of Tuscany?

Also, there is a small chance of me being to Italy this year, but we’ll be travelling there next year. Perhaps this experiment will help us decide on which regions we want to visit.

Kyle–I didn’t even think of doing some sort of formal training, but this certainly looks intriguing. Looks like it starts 2/25 as well. Thank you for the info!

Did you take this course?

Paul—John’s website looks great…going to read through it today. Really like how he has recipes as well…thank you!

Markus–haha, not quite. More trying to focus more on trying/tasting wines from one country, rather than being all over the place. I want to make a concerted effort over the next year to buy Italian wines, order Italian wines by the glass at restaurants, etc. I know it’s not possible to learn everything, which would take multiple lifetimes, but just get a better sense.

I’ve been drinking and collecting Italian wines for 30 years and still wouldn’t claim that I “know” Italian wine. But no reason why this needs to be a one year experiment unless you find that you don’t like the wines.

I’m going to second Matt Stolz’ suggestion about focusing on a region, and given your wife’s heritage, I will suggest Sicily. Very food-friendly wines, and as you move around the island, very different styles as well.

You’ve got Etna wines that are high on the wine geek scale because they focus on two grapes (Nerello Mascalese and Carricante) that aren’t well-known grapes. Depending on where you live, there should be multiple producers available to try - Passopisciaro, Terre Nere, Calabretta, Bonavita, Vini Biondi and Graci are just some of the producers you might be able to find.

Then as you move away from Etna, the grapes change and you’ll find Nero d’Avola-based wines and other grapes as well. Gulfi makes some of the best Neros, and two other Sicilian producers I tend to like are COS (very traditional) and Arianna Occhipinti (her Frappato can be an excellent intro wine).

Oh, and enjoy your explorations [cheers.gif]

It is a laudable goal, but probably impossible. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Italy has 3,000 years of history. And wine is a part of that history. And food too. You are not going to fully cover that in a year. I have been to Italy every year for 23 years and I am still not “finished”. Italy has more than you can possibly imagine.

Rich—I agree. I think that will be the toughest part as well. Perhaps I’ll get into one region, ex. Piedmont, and want to spend all my time there. I just figured places like Barolo, Barbaresco, Montalcino, etc. may start to exceed my $50 ($100, occasionally) budget pretty quickly.

Using Rory’s plan of let’s say 8 weeks in Tuscany, I would really like to learn from board members here what producers would be best to start with…Rinaldi and Produtorri are perfect examples. I know there are plenty of other topics on the major Italian regions - Tuscany, Piedmont, etc., but would really be curious about the smaller/lesser know regions as well.

Thank you for the Vinous suggestion…will certainly check it out. Read a bunch about Galloni on this site, but haven’t looked up his site.

Bob—that is exactly right. Sort of an experiment on my part to focus on one country for a period of time, as opposed to being all over the place, so I can figure out what I like. Goal is to find those areas and producers where I can dive down further, and was hoping one year was a decent amount of time to start.

Sicily (with Etna being there), or someplace in the south, was my initial thought as well, as opposed to a larger area like Tuscany or Veneto. I’ve had many wines from Italy (mostly Chianti, Veneto and Langhe), but never really took a more ‘systematic’ approach to really paying attention to what I was drinking. Going south to north might be a great way to start. Will do a quick search for producers you’ve listed above…thank you! Passopisciaro and Calabretta are the only ones I’ve had in the past, and probably only 1-2 of each, so really have no idea of the region.

I live in Manhattan Beach, so I have access to a ton of good wine shops from West LA to Orange County. It shouldn’t be an issue to find producers at retail, and there are a number of restaurants in LA that have pretty decent Italian wines by the glass as well.

Gary—I agree and perhaps after a year, I may find that staying in Italy is where I’m headed. I may start in Sicily, and find that I stay there for the entire year…just don’t know at this point. Living in CA, I’ve naturally spent my time there, as it’s much easier to learn the regions and recognize the producers. Most of the people I drink wine with are the same as well, so I’m trying to switch things up a bit. If I have a focused plan to stick to one region/country for a year, perhaps I’ll come away with many new experiences that I can build on.

I think one year of study and tasting is enough to get a very solid foundation of Italian wine knowledge, as long as you stick to it and spend plenty of time actually studying (not just tasting a bunch of wines).

Rory’s list is well thought out, but I think it’s too focused on reds. You need more wines from Alto Adige for even a basic understanding of that region (don’t exclude Kerner), and I’d definitely include Vermentino from Sardegna as well as a couple of other places for contrast (definitely Liguria where it’s commonly called Pigato as well as the Tuscan coast and/or Piedmont where it’s called Favorita).

For reds, I think a good approach would be to start with Piedmont and Tuscany. In particular, various expressions of Nebbiolo and Sangiovese are probably the most important wines of Italy in many ways, and knowing those wines gives a helpful frame of reference on reds from various other parts of the country. This is where I would include the greatest number of wines, since there are quite a few benchmarks of different types for those two grapes and then you have French grapes in Tuscany and several other grapes in Piedmont that you should experience (of course Dolcetto and different styles of Barbera, plus I think it’s worth tasting at least a couple of the less famous grapes as long as it doesn’t make you exclude important categories elsewhere).

For Campania, make sure you get the 3 major white grapes (Greco di Tufo, Falanghina, Fiano) as well as a Taurasi and a less expensive Aglianico (and hopefully a Taurasi Riserva if the budget allows).

I haven’t laid this out systematically, so I might be overcommitting with the number of wines.

Matt—appreciate the reply, and I know one year won’t even come close to doing the country justice. I’m hoping in a year or so, I can learn enough to be able to decipher wines from each regions and find a few producers to keep for the long haul. I think you have a good idea…perhaps focus on the four major region you mention above, spending 3 months or so in each. I’m glad you mentioned Sicily, as that was mentioned a few other times as well, so perhaps I’ll start there and move north. Would be a good place for my wife and I to focus on the food from there as well.