Italy - home of Moscato, Chianti, Amarone and Prosecco">Prosecco - has a Rich and diverse wine heritage that dates back over two thousand years. Famous for its astonishing diversity of Grape varieties and wine styles, Italy is also important for the Volume of wine it produces: just over 4 billion liters (about 1. 06 billion U. S.
gallons) in 2012, from 800,000 hectares of vineyards. It is rivalled in this respect only by France and Spain. (© Wine-Searcher)
Managing and marketing such a vast portfolio of wines is not an easy task, especially in today's highly competitive wine market. The Italian government's wine classification and labeling system uses a four-level quality hierarchy of over 500 DOCG, DOC and IGT titles.
See Italian wine labels.
Italy is divided into 20 administrative regions (see left), all of which produce wine to some degree, and all of which contain various wine regions. The most important, in terms of quality and quantity, are Tuscany, Piedmont and Veneto.
Each region has its flagship wine styles.
Originally from Italy, it is the famous Sangiovese of Tuscany producing the famous wines of Brunello de Montalcino and Chianti. This variety is registered in the Official Catalogue of Wine Grape Varieties, list A1. According to recent genetic analysis, it is the result of a natural cross between the almost unknown Calabrese di Montenuovo (mother) and Ciliegiolo (father).
natural sweet wines from the region of Italy go well with generally quite well with dishes of beef, lamb or rich fish (salmon, tuna etc) such as recipes of steak tartare, lamb chops with spanish sauce or pasta with tuna.
On the nose in the region of Italy often reveals types of flavors of oak, non oak or spices and sometimes also flavors of dried fruit, black fruit or earth.
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