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Wine
Regions
Old World
Italy
SOUTHERN ITALY
Southern Italy and the Islands
Hot and largely hilly, with volcanic soils, southern Italy is an ancient
and prolific wine-growing area While overproduction continues to be a problem,
there are an increasing number of well-made wines.
JUTTING OUT INTO THE BLUE WATERS of the Mediterranean, the vineyards of
southern Italy receive very little natural moisture and bake rather than
bask In unrelenting sunshine. This factor provides for deep colored wines
with strong flavors and high alcoholic levels. These heavy wines do not
suit modem tastes and even though southern Italy continues to produce a
glut of this almost unsaleable wine, the region is subtly changing course.
Its small but growing volume of cleaner, finer, more expressive wines may
enable it to establish an identity capable of thriving in ever more sophisticated
world wine markets. The biggest obstacle to achieving this is the poverty
which has for so long blighted southern Italy
APULIA (PUGLIA)
Apulia's exceptionally fertile plains make it one of Italy's largest wine-producing
regions, but until the 1970s most of its wines were
seen fit only for blending or for making Vermouth. Because of this, most
Apulian producers decided to try to rid themselves of this lowly reputation,
bringing about a radical transformation of their industry A great number
of very ordinary wines are still produced but various changes have greatly
improved the situation. Irrigation schemes, the introduction of lower-yielding,
higher-quality grape
varieties (including many classic French ones) and a move away from the
single-bush cultivation, known as alberello, to modem wire-trained systems,
have led to both new wines gaining favor and some traditional ones showing
renewed promise. Now the two most important grape varieties are the Primitivo,
which has been identified as the Zinfandel of California and is the earliest
ripening grape grown in Italy and the Uva di Troia, which has no connection
with the town of Troia in Apulia's northern province of Foggia, but refers
to ancient Troy from where the grape originates. It was brought to the region
by the first Greeks to settle in the Taranto area.
CAMPANIA
Campania Felix, as the Romans called it, is well-known for "Lacryma
Christi", a wine that today is not bad enough to bring a tear to the
eye of Christ, but which is certainly not a fine wine. Little else produced
here is of interest.
BASILICATA
Basilicata is a dramatic and wild region dominated by the extinct volcano
Mount Vulture. Manufacturing industry is scarce here, accounting for less
than one per cent of the regions output, and the mountainous terrain makes
mechanized agriculture extremely difficult. Lacking investment finance and
with two in every three inhabitants unemployed, Basilicata has not had the
means nor the incentive to modernize its wine industry. Consequently with
the exception of the first class, if idiosyncratic, Aglianico del Vulture
DOC by Fratelli d'Angelo, there is very little here of interest.
CALABRIA
The decline in Calabria's viticultural output since the 1960s has been for
the better in terms of quality. Since then the most unsuitable land has
been abandoned, and the eight current DOCs, located in hilly and mountainous
terrain, may eventually prove to be a source of quality wine. At the moment,
however, improvement in wine technology is slow and, with the exception
of Umberto Ceratti's succulent Greco di Bianco, a world-class dessert wine
that is a relic of the past, this region also has little in the way of interesting
wine.
SICILY (SICILIA)
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean and, in terms of quantity
one of Italy's most important wine regions, annually producing a quantity,
roughly equal to Veneto or Emilia Romagna. Many of the island's wines are
consumed locally although the branded wine "Corvo" has a fairly
high export profile. Sicily's once popular classic wine, Marsala, now finds
itself OUt of favor with modem tastes, although there is a determined effort
to reestablish it by dropping the flavor red versions and concentrating
on lighter vergine style.
SARDINIA (SARDEGNA)
Whilst virtually all styles of wine are still produced in Sardinia, its
wine industry has undergone a radical modernization since the late-1970s.
Its wines are now vinified in stainless steel at cool temperatures and,
as a result, the majority of Sardinia's wines are fresh and dean, with good
fruity flavors. Although it produces no "fine" wine, in the classic
sense, the wines are generally well made and easy to enjoy