Most wine lovers - Italian and otherwise - are well aware of the virtues of our beautiful country, nestled in the Mediterranean and spread over a portion of the planet that is particularly favorable for viticulture. Central Italy has a powerful storytelling and condenses in its regions (conventionally Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Marche and Lazio) all the qualities and peculiarities found in the rest of Italy, from Vipiteno to Lampedusa.
History in our central regions is... on the side of Fufluns, the Etruscan counterpart of the Greek god Dionysus and later the Roman god Bacchus. The cultivation of vines and the production of wine, in fact, date back to the Etruscan era as attested by numerous testimonies, such as the frescoes of the Golini tombs in Orvieto.
Central Italy is a small wine continent, enclosed between two seas: there we find the heroic viticulture of the Giglio island of Ponza and Terracina, the mountain one of Careggine, structured wines such as Sagrantino di Montefalco and more delicate and mineral ones such as Vernaccia of San Gimignano, consolidated sacred monsters such as Brunello di Montalcino and productions whose success is on the rise, such as Montefalco Rosso.
The geological variety is impressive: in the central regions wine is produced from volcanic soils (Orvieto) or characterized by layers of marine origin (the Marche hills in the area of Jesi and Morro d'Alba), red clayey soils mixed with sulphiferous chalk formations, marl , galestro and palombino (as in Montalcino). There is a numerous ampelographic presence, especially in the sector of native vines: in the five main regions of central Italy there are no fewer than thirty native vines. Such variety brings with it spontaneous diversification in winemaking: just think of the sparkling wines and Verdicchios from the Marche area, the versatile Lacrima di Morro d'Alba, the robust Tuscan and Umbrian reds, passing through the famous vinsanti.
Central Italy is truly a wonderful kaleidoscope, which we discovered in the November 2021 thematic selection.