I’ve just launched something I’ve been working on for a long time and wanted to share it with this group: the Italian Wine Map, a free interactive atlas of Italian wine.
What’s on it
536 appellation zones: every DOCG, DOC and IGT, drawn over satellite imagery
3D view, so you can see how the zones sit on the hills, valleys and volcanic slopes
119 crus: for now the vineyard polygons are Piedmont only, with more regions to come
6,494 towns, so you can find where a producer actually is Where the boundaries come from
The zones are drawn from official sources: regional open data, ISTAT boundaries and, where the disciplinare allows, Agenzia delle Entrate cadastral sheets. I’m also working with several consorzi (Etna, Friuli, Barbaresco) to bring in their official mapping, so the detail will keep growing. Etna already has 33 of Castiglione di Sicilia’s contrade.
Why I made it
Italy has more appellations than anywhere else, and most maps either stop at the region or cover only the famous zones. I wanted one place where you can zoom from the whole country down to a single cru and see how it relates to its neighbors.
The map lives alongside my appellation, grape, producer and cru guides and my Italian wine reviews on the same site.
Feedback welcome
If you spot a boundary that looks wrong, a missing zone, or a cru you’d like to see added, please tell me here or at info@oraziocampoli.com. Corrections are very welcome.
Full disclosure: I’m ITB (Italian wine buyer at K&L Wine Merchants). This is my personal project: no ads and nothing for sale.
Very cool, great work! I’ve been playing around with the Piedmont map. I assume it would be very difficult to break crus down by producer and/or varietal? The only other thing I could think of would be to layer information from Google maps or the like that would show street names, major landmarks, etc. That would make it a more travel oriented map but helpful nonetheless.
Very cool!
Orazio, are you also the Italian wine buyer for K&L! If so, I love what you are doing and please add Castill’in Villa and d’Arco to your regular purchases.
I can remember early on, reading through my Wine Atlas, feeling bewildered by all the boundary lines in Italy. And every time someone complains about Germany I always respond “have you even tried Italy”? This could help people trying to learn wine a lot.
I am mostly thinking about road names but also any landmarks to help anchor where things are at. Ultimately you can still figure out which road is which but it takes some additional time to process/validate.
I’m happy with whatever you have access to! Castell’in covers my itch for Chianti while d’Arco seems a good replacement for Quintarelli.
I also really appreciate how you’ve been allowed to expand the portfolio of Italian wines in SoCal. Especially when it comes to not just buying Baricci for Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino.
Cheers !