Five Grapes Behind Italian Red Wines

Italy is known for some of the world’s best red wines. The quality, elegance and variety of Italian red wine make it a perfect companion to their varied and flavourful cuisine. Italy’s diverse wine-growing regions make it the picture-perfect location to yield the best grapes.

Piedmont, located in northern Italy, is home to the Barbera grape known for its robust and dark color and high acidity.The foggy fall weather in Piedmont is what gives our next grape its name.

The Nebbiolo grape produces lively, complex and vivacious wines, most famously in Barolo.

In the central Italian region of Umbria, we find another Italian classic: Sagrantino. This red wine is high in alcohol, acidity and tannin, with blackberry and black cherry fruit flavours.

Moving along to Italy’s southwest, in Campania, we find the Aglianico grape, a powerful, tannic, long-lived wine with a savoury, herbal character.

Finally, we head south to sunny Sicily where we will find the Nero d’Avola grape, which can be made into an easy drinking wine with plummy red fruit flavours, or can conjure up a more complex wine (often aged in oak) that provide darker berry flavors and chocolate fragrances. A popular organic wine made from Nero D’Avola on our shelves is the Insieme Nero D’Avola No Added Sulphur.

For more on the history of these five intriguing wines check out Joe Roberts’s take on The Grapes Behind Italian Red Wines.

Source: Fix.com Blog