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2015 a Good Vintage in Italy After a forgettable 2014 harvest in many regions of Italy, the 2015 vintage is a welcome arrival. Rain and cool weather at inopportune times during the 2014 growing season shaved almost 20% off the quantity that was produced in 2013’s bumper crop. Now, with fine summer and fall weather […]
Letter from the Prosecco Consorzio June 24, 2015 As has been widely reported, global sales of Prosecco reached 306 million bottles last year, compared to 241.5 million bottles the previous year. Even with this documented increase, there have been reports in the media that there is a current shortage. We felt the need to issue […]
Posted December 4, 2014 Quick quiz. Pignoletto is: A. An opera by Giuseppe Verdi B. A fairy-tale puppet that magically becomes a little boy C. A sketch from The Muppet Show D. An Italian grape variety The correct answer is none of the above. Until very recently, Pignoletto was the name of a white grape […]
Posted November 5, 2014 The OIV (International Organization of Vine and Wine) has released its early estimates of the global wine production volume for 2014, and as expected, it’s France’s turn at the head of the pack this year. After two disappointing harvests in a row, France’s 2014 harvest came in above average in volume, […]
Posted June 23, 2014 UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) on June 22, 2014, added Barolo and Barbaresco to the list of World Heritage sites. The Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (Italy) joins about 1,000 other sites around the world that are recognized by UNESCO for their “outstanding universal value.” […]
Dignitaries, a World's Fair, the Jolly Roger, and Promising Whites The largest gathering of Italian wine in the world—Vinitaly—took place, as it has for nearly 50 years, in Verona, Italy, April 6–9, 2014. An estimated 155,000 visitors attended this year’s fair (seemingly all of them on Sunday the 6th), tasting wine from some 4,000 producers. […]
Posted March 3, 2014 The playing field of Italian wine denominations was remarkably quiet for two years after the riotous commotion that led up to the shift of control over wine legislation from Rome to the European Community (see related article). However, a slow simmer of activity returned last year with an increasing number of […]
Posted February 17, 2014; updated May 19, 2015 The anticipated new premium level for the wines of Chianti Classico DOCG — Gran Selezione (Great Selection) — has cleared its final hurdle and is now officially part of the Chianti Classico portfolio. Gran Selezione is a new classification above Riserva, made using grapes harvested only from […]
Posted January 23, 2014 [Note: Nizza DOCG was approved as of December 2014 and there are now, in fact, 74 DOCGs; see the Nizza page and the comments at the end of this article.—ed.] Proposed Nizza DOCG Moves Forward After two years of utter calm, there may be some stirrings of activity in the list […]