Italian
Wine Industry Evolves Quality Improves Dramatically
August 6, 2002
Mention Italian wine and many people will immediately think of a straw-covered
Chianti bottle. But just as there's more to Italian food than pasta
with red sauce, there's much more to Italian wine than old-fashioned
Chianti.
These are heady times for the Italian wine industry. Italy exports
more wine to the United States -- more than 17 million cases in 2001
-- than any other country. Sure, some of it is cheap and insipid.
Some of it is even in straw-covered bottles. But thanks to dramatic
improvements in winemaking and viticulture, there are now some excellent
wines being produced in areas that most Americans had never heard
of 10 years ago. Wine production in the country is actually declining
as the focus shifts to higher quality.
"There's a revolution going on in Italy," says Sergio
Esposito, co-owner of Italian Wine Merchants in New York, who
led a tasting last month at the KCBX Central Coast Wine Classic, held
annually near San Luis Obispo.
Most wine lovers are familiar with Chianti and Brunello
di Montalcino, sangiovese-based
wines from Tuscany.
They also know the so-called super Tuscans, red wines that often include
international grape varieties such as cabernet
sauvignon and merlot. From the northwestern Piedmont
region, Barolo and Barbaresco, made from nebbiolo,
have a strong following. But Esposito notes that there are about 2,000
grape varieties grown in Italy, and about 16,000 wine producers.
From all parts of the country, wine quality has never been higher.
The southern regions, such as Puglia
and Campania,
which for decades produced primarily high-alcohol wines used to beef
up other blends, are turning out some well-made, often extremely affordable,
wines. Even the wines from some of the better-known areas -- notably
Chianti Classico -- have been radically transformed in recent years.
All the changes and the increasing variety sold here can make Italian
wines pretty confusing, even for people who spend an inordinate amount
of time obsessing about wine. Several recently published books can
help. For the basics, there's "Italian Wines for Dummies"
by Mary Ewing-Mulligan and Ed McCarthy (Hungry Minds, $14.99). Published
in 2001, it provides a good overview of the various regions, their
grapes and the best producers.
If you want to go into more depth about specific wines, there's another
2001 book, "Burton Anderson's Best Italian Wines" (Little,
Brown, $29.95), written by one of the world's leading authorities
on the subject. Anderson has selected more than 200 of what he deems
to be the country's best wines, and his descriptions also give plenty
of valuable information about the producers. I used the book last
year to help plan a trip to northern Italy.
Now there's a new entry on the subject, "Vino Italiano: The Regional
Wines of Italy" by Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch (Clarkson
Potter, $35). Bastianich, the son of New York chef Lidia Bastianich,
co-owns a number of New York restaurants, including Babbo, Esca and
Felidia; co-owns Italian Wine Merchants (with Esposito and Babbo chef
Mario Batali); and is proprietor of a wine estate in Friuli-Venezia
Giulia, in northeastern Italy. Lynch, a longtime wine writer, is now
wine director at Babbo. The authors led a separate tasting at the
Central Coast Wine Classic on "Italy's Noble Reds."
What I like about their book is the way they put Italian wine in its
proper context of cultural and culinary traditions. Too often, wine
is treated as something to be analyzed and rated, divorced from its
traditional place at the table during meals. Bastianich and Lynch
offer plenty of detailed wine descriptions. First and foremost, though,
"Vino Italiano'' is pervaded by the notion of ambiente: an Italian
word that literally means ``environment'' and, thus, is similar to
the French concept of terroir, the physical environment in which the
grapes are grown. But, the authors argue, ambiente, when applied to
wine, goes further than terroir, to include the culture that surrounds
a given wine.
So the section on the Veneto,
the region that encompasses Verona and Venice and produces wines such
as Valpolicella and Amarone, discusses the tradition of eating horse
meat in Verona. The section on Piedmont, a region obsessed with wine,
starts with a description of "the guns of Barbaresco" --
the practice of shooting at storm clouds that might bring grape-destroying
hail (in the old days, real cannons were used; now they use air cannons).
In Tuscany, the authors go hunting in the coastal area of Bolgheri
for boar, one of the region's culinary specialties.
Food is everywhere in "Vino Italiano": Each regional section
includes a short culinary commentary and recipes from either Lidia
Bastianich or Batali. Considering the inextricable links between Italy's
regional cuisines and its wines, the prominence that this wine book
gives to food is entirely fitting. Not to mention delicious.
Tasting notes
Here are my tasting notes for some of the Italian wines poured at
tastings led by Sergio Esposito and by Joe Bastianich and David Lynch
at the Central Coast Wine Classic. All are reds:
2000 Abbona Dolcetto di Dogliani, Papa Celso ($18) -- Dark and concentrated,
with black plum, dried cherry and hints of licorice and tar. Good
concentration and firm tannins.
1999 Meroi Ros di Buri ($40) -- Big, juicy and aromatic, with bright
cherry and firm tannins. A blend of merlot and cabernet franc from
Friuli.
1997 Talenti Rosso Talenti di Montalcino ($42.50) -- Bright, racy
cherry, accented by notes of tar and white pepper. Big and robust.
An 80-20 blend of sangiovese and syrah.
1998 Cascina Ebreo Segreto ($60) -- Very juicy, with black raspberry,
blueberry and black cherry. Great depth and structure, with a hint
of oak. Very long finish. Blend of 85 percent barbera and 15 percent
nebbiolo from Piedmont. Highly recommended.
1998 Querciabella Chianti Classico Riserva ($24) -- Aromatic, with
juicy cherry and some spicy notes. Good concentration and a long finish.
Highly recommended.
1998 Pio Cesare Barolo ($40) -- Plump, with dried cherry and hints
of licorice and earth. Juicy, with great structure. An excellent buy
from Barolo.
1998 Tommaso Bussola Amarone della Valpolicella 'BG' ($40) -- Explosive
aromas. Intense, dark and rich, with flavors of dried fig and chocolate,
and some earthy, smoky notes. Highly recommended.
By Laurie Daniel
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