Montalcino: The Great 2015 Brunellos & More
featured, Italy: Tuscany
, Apr 2020
Wine lovers everywhere are in for a real treat with Montalcino’s latest releases. The 2015 Brunellos are some of the best in recent memory, while the 2018 Rossos are wonderfully fresh and inviting. A handful of luscious Moscadellos round out the wines featured in this report.
Venica & Venica Friulano Collio Ronco delle Cime 1990–2017
featured, Italy: North
, Mar 2020
Venica’s Ronco delle Cime is one of Italy’s benchmark Friulanos. Sleek and refined, it ages well, never losing its crisp, juicy character and food-friendly personality.
Schiopetto Friulano: 1992-2017
featured, Italy: North
, Mar 2020
Mario Schiopetto is considered the father of modern Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) wines. Before his arrival, FVG wines garnered mostly local interest and were consumed fairly quickly after the harvest. But Schiopetto’s wines were clean, precise, mineral and ageworthy, and they rapidly gained an international following, literally putting FVG on the map. Schiopetto’s Friulano, first made in 1965, has long been one of the region’s gold standards for this iconic indigenous variety.
Latest Releases: Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia and Sardinia
featured, Italy: Center & South
, Feb 2020
Southern Italy offers many excellent and often inexpensive wines for those willing to venture outside their comfort zone. Although there are underachievers, if you stick to the producers I recommend here, you won’t be disappointed, for there are a myriad of wine grapes, styles and estates worth discovering.
Alto Adige: On a Roll
featured, Italy: North
, Feb 2020
Readers will find some of Italy’s best wines in Alto Adige, the northerly mountain region that borders Austria. It is here that the country’s top white wines are made, while there are increasingly more compelling reds to choose from as well. Readers won’t want to miss out on the latest vintages. Overall quality has never been higher.
Volpe Pasini Pinot Bianco Zuc di Volpe: 1999-2017
featured, Italy: North
, Feb 2020
Pinot Bianco has called Friuli Venezia Giulia home for centuries now. Volpe Pasini’s Zuc di Volpe single-vineyard bottling is one of the best Pinot Biancos Italy has to offer. Pretty and varietally expressive, it’s also quite ageworthy.
Gulfi Nero d’Avola Nerosanloré: 2001-2015
featured, Italy: Center & South, Verticals & Retrospectives
, Jan 2020
Gulfi was the first winery in Sicily to believe in single-contrada Nero d’Avolas. Today, Gulfi makes four such wines that highlight the extraordinary diversity of these sites, all of them so well-suited to showing the potential of Sicily’s indigenous Nero d’Avola. This vertical spanned a representative selection of the Nerosanloré - arguably the most elegant of the wines.
Valle d’Aosta: Micro Productions, Mega Quality
featured, Italy: North
, Jan 2020
Valle d’Aosta makes some of Italy’s most distinctive wines. Unlike most other regions of Italy, producers here excel with both native and international varieties. The latest vintages confirm this – and then some.
Tiberio Pecorino Colline Pescaresi 2005-2018
featured, Italy: Center & South
, Jan 2020
Tiberio’s Pecorino has fast become a gold standard for the variety, delivering aromas and flavors and a relatively rich glyceral texture that are archetypal of the cultivar, but with more refinement than most wines made with this trendy Italian native grape.
Friuli Venezia Giulia: The New Releases
featured, Italy: North
, Jan 2020
Along with Piedmont and the Valle d’Aosta, Friuli Venezia Giulia offers wine lovers the greatest diversity in grape varieties and wine styles of any region in Italy. The whites and sweet wines are among the best in the country, and the reds have also become especially enticing in recent years.