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The Italian Abroad Wine Blog is a wine blog and diary where I share my thoughts, primarily about Italian wine and food, but also on wine, food, and travel in general. I founded Italyabroad.com in 2003 and have been living abroad for over 20 years. Coming from an Italian winemaking family, I was introduced to wine at a very early age. While my roots are in Italian wine, I appreciate and enjoy good wine from all over the world, alongside great food and the joys of travel. My posts often weave these passions together.
To help you better understand Italian wines, we've created a series of Italian wine regions maps that show DOC and DOCG wines, their origins and the grapes they are made of, including your favorite Italian wines. I’ve also written a post on the Italian wine appellation system explaining and demystifying the Italian wine classification system and what it really means for wine lovers and enthusiasts.
Additionally, I host a YouTube channel , where you can watch me taste some of our wines and answer your questions about Italian wines and grapes. From the meaning of DOC to what makes an orange wine, we cover it all.
I hope you enjoy reading this wine blog! Feel free to reach out with any questions.
Salute
Andrea
The 2022 vintage has just started, this is only the beginning; the next couple of months and the amount of rain falling will determine its quality and what to expect from the wines. But 2022 has also reminded wine makers of the challenges ahead due to the extreme weather events that are becoming more and more frequent
If the various consortiums had the right management and skills could easily see that, from a financial and marketing point of view, these “wins” bring little benefit to their members and the same money could be better spent promoting the real products and educating consumers instead of paying thousands to lawyers all over the world to apply and enforce trademarks.
I recently read a post from a fellow wine blogger titled “Simple wines”. The post is about good, drinkable wines costing less compared to the “others” produced by the same winery and the article takes inspiration from the writer enjoying a good prosecco costing only “about €10”. After reading the post I asked myself whether these were simple wines or simply made wines? I can certainly define a simply made wine but could not define a simple wines, what is a simple wine? I believe simply made wines, for me, or simple wines, in a time where living costs are sky rocketing, could not be more actual to talk about.
I have recently returned from Villaggio Coldiretti, a village organized by the Coldiretti, the Italian farmers’ association, held in Milan and what a great trip it was. Not only the weather was hot, maybe a bit too hot, but the food and the wine were simply beautiful and then the location, more than the venue, Castello Sforzesco and its park, in the heart of Milan, only a few minutes away from the Duomo, with its green and tranquillity.
When I founded Italyabroad.com, in 2003, wine was, for many, an unknown subject; a subject that very few people could understand let alone explain; these were the times where wine critics could make or break a winery, they were treated like celebrities. These were the times where winemakers worshipped wine writers; winemakers would have given anything for a 90 plus review or a mention from the likes of Robert Parker, and wine drinkers were eagerly waiting for their Sunday’s wine columns with their wallets ready and there were only a few wine competitions. These times are now gone
Awards come and go, one year the wine is a gold medal winner the next not even bronze, every vintage is different, every judge has a different palate and nose. I recently saw an advert for a wine with a big gold medal and when reading it, I read “2016”, an award won for the 2016 vintage is being used to promote a 2021 vintage and has been for every vintage in between. If we don’t judge a book by its cover, we should not judge a wine by its award.
These are all elements that not only affect the price but also the quality of the olive oil, the health benefits, and one of the main benefits are the polyphenols, the peppery taste, described by some as the “bitter” taste, a good extra virgin olive oil must be peppery or bitter. If not, the oil, technically described as “flat”, doesn’t have any of its health benefits, not worth its price, even if it is only a couple of pounds.
Wine lovers and wine connoisseurs are aware of the importance of pairing the right wine with the right types of food, from simple, generic pairing rules such as pairing red wine with red meat and white wine with fish to more complicated pairings for the more experts, still too many overlook the correct serving temperature: each wine should be drunk at the right temperatures. By drinking the wine at the right temperature not only it will enhance the flavours of the food but you will be able to grasp the full spectrum of the wine’s aromas and flavours, to fully appreciate it.
Pecorino’s wines from Abruzzo, except for the recently created DOCG Terre Tollesi or Tullum appellation, are all bottled as Pecorino DOC making difficult, if not impossible, for wine lovers and drinkers to be aware of the differences between their styles, however, any Pecorino wine well made is worth drinking
The Italian craft beer movement is still here, less breweries and less excitement, but plenty of independent breweries producing outstanding beer, breweries that now have several years of experience and whilst they stopped experimenting with beer, they kept learning and improving on the beers they produce. At the beginning of the beer revolution, Italians would know very little about beer, beer wasn’t cool or trendy, and was mainly drunk on the back room of small villages’s bar up and down the country when playing cards
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