E’ lo Chenin Blanc la grande, recente scoperta dei consumatori americani, un vino che i futurologi del settore prevedono crescerà sempre di più nell’apprezzamento della gente (a scapito del solito Chardonnay e perfino del Riesling, due vini di cui non sempre si ha un’immagine positiva). Questo e altri sono gli esiti di un’indagine condotta nei mesi scorsi dall’agenzia internazionale Sopexa sui trend del vino, e incentrata sui mercati di Belgio, USA, Giappone, Cina, Canada, Hong Kong. Poichè anche l’Italia fa parte della brigata dei principali paesi esportatori in quei mercati, ecco qualche spunto su come stanno andando le cose per i produttori di casa nostra:
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Vigneti di Rolle - Prosecco Doc
12 easy facts about Italian wine
Easy facts to remember - yet sometimes uncomfortable.
1 - How many Italian grapes can you mention? Let’s see: Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Corvina, Garganega… And? Come on! You’re omitting other 400 or 500 grapes! The Italian grape landscape is a lot more complex and detailed than what you believe. If you limit yourself to only a few grapes, you deprive yourself of more exciting discovers.
2 - Amarone della Valpolicella is not a grape: it is a blend of Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella grapes. Molinara has been out of the blend since 2003. Just a few (and brave, and truly traditional) wine producers in Valpolicella still put this grape in the blend of their wines.
3- A white Amarone della Valpolicella doesn’t exist. If you find a white wine with this name it’s a clamorous FAKE.
4- Prosecco is not a grape. It’s a wine! Its grape is called Glera.
5 - In Dalmatia there is a wine with a similar name, too: Prosek. It’s a passito still wine, though. Don’t get confused by the two.
6) Not every Italian sparkling wine is a Prosecco. Defining “Prosecco” any Italian bubbly wine is like calling “Ferrari” any Italian red car. Know the difference between the different Italian sparkling wines; there is Prosecco, Franciacorta, Asti, Trentodoc, Lambrusco, Lessini Durello… and on and on. You don’t want to make a dumb of yourself, do you?
7) Comparing a Prosecco to a Champagne is like comparing Lady Gaga to Edith Piaf: another silly thing.
8) Saying “It’s an Italian wine!” is an abstract simplification. Italy has 20 different regions, each of them produces wine (in different quantities), often made from native grapes - and called with weird names more or less easy to pronounce. Yes, it is not easy to go deep in this country - but it is worth it. So you discover that a wine produced in a Northern region can be very different from a wine produced in a Southern region, even if made with the same grape. No other country in the world can give you such an experience - except Portugal, maybe.
9) The so called “natural” (or organic, or bio-something) wine, produced in small quantities (from 1000 to 10 thousand bottles) in a handcrafted/traditional way with local grapes exists almost everywhere, in Italy. If this is your type of wine, you MUST come here, look for it, and experience it yourself. Normally it is not exported, because the quantities are too small, and the price too high.
10) If you are looking for such natural wines and expect to pay a price between 3-5 euros FOB, forget it. These kinds of wines are expensive! Too small the production, too high the production costs.
11) If you find a natural wine with an incredibly low price, keep away from it. There is something wrong, and /or somebody is lying to you.
12) The wine producers are usually very concerned about the labels of their wines. If they are very old style and/or traditional (a bit boring and obvious, I mean), it’s pretty sure that the wine is intended to restaurants, or "adult" drinkers. If the label is modern, colored, with a fancy name…it’s likely the wine is intended to the modern distribution, or to young people. Or the producer is a young one.
Easy, isn't it?
Due insoliti spumanti
Con l'alzarsi delle temperature, la mia attrazione per i rossi corposi, fruttatoni e superalcolici subisce un crollo verticale. Dalla cantina salgono baldanzosi e contenti i rossi leggeri, i rosati di qualsivoglia sfumatura e uva ... e soprattutto gli sparkling. Niente di meglio di un bel metodo-qualcosa quando la colonnina di mercurio tirando il collo cerca di arrivare all'ultima tacca. E dunque, largo agli charmat per aprire la giornata, e poi via con i classici.
Gli ultimi due interessanti assaggi fatti riguardano proprio due metodi classici, uno del Nord e uno del Sud. E, curiosamente, nessuno dei due è quel che vorrebbe far credere. Non nascono dal tradizionale uvaggio degli spumanti metodo classico. E, se è per questo, non nascono nemmeno da uve bianche. O da uve rosse tradizionalmente note per la loro predisposizione a farsi spumantizzare.