A book to read: Italian Wine Unplugged (Grape by Grape)
Summarizing the long and complex history of Italian wines (and grapes) is always challenging, for everybody. However, who doesn’t wish a handbook where finding all-you-need-to-know about Italian wine world? So, just out of curiosity, for your personal culture and, obviously, for fun.
Here it is! The "Italian Wineplugged Grape by Grape" is a sort of "everything you always wanted to know about this topic but were too shy (or lazy) to ask".
This book (by Stevie Kim and many other internationally renowned wine educators) has been written to satisfy the wine knowledge thirst of many people and to entertain many others. It’s not one of those boring books full of a plenty of blah blah, who just a few brave readers could understand: conversely, it has many catchy infographics, an effective way to put information even in the skull of the most distracted student. Just let’s take a famous Italian (autochthonous) grape and look at its "technical sheet": although the grapes in the country are many more, in the book you can find a detailed "identity card" for at least 100 of the most renowned. The format is a sort of mind map, very effective and summary: you can see all you want to know about the grape, from its features (diseases included) to the wines/denominations where the grape is.
Regions, denominations, soils characteristics, history and much more: here there is everything.
If you are planning to attend the VIA, some WSET courses or even the MW program, this book (both in digital version than in paper, for the nostalgic ones) can be more than helpful. Italy owns an extremely wide range of grapes and wines, so a little help to get started in orienting is just necessary. Even for the Italian themselves.
Può sembrare l'ennesimo libro su uve e vini italiani, in realtà "Italian Wine Unplugged Grape by Grape" di Stevie Kim et alii è una specie di manuale di sopravvivenza per appassionati di vino. 430 vitigni (di cui un centinaio spiegati nel dettaglio), loro caratteristiche, collocazione geografica, storia, sistemi di classificazione, tipologie di vini: il libro spiega senza tanti fronzoli tutto quel che serve sapere per orientarsi nell'intricata giungla del mondo del vino italiano, fatta di centinaia di varietà autoctone (nemmeno noi italiani le conosciamo tutte) e di una selva di denominazioni. Indirizzato in particolare ad un pubblico di winelover stranieri, come dimostra (lingua inglese a parte) l'ampio uso di mind maps (tanto efficaci quanto rare nel mondo della comunicazione italiana del vino) al posto delle classiche schede dei vitigni, è comunque un libro che nella sua versione digitale vale la pena avere sul proprio smartphone, sia per evitare imbarazzanti lapsus o vuoti di memoria sul più bello di una discussione (o di una degustazione), sia per tenere sempre ripassate le proprie conoscenze...