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Wine from Italy | Rosso. Bianco. Rosato. Prosecco & Spumante

Wine from Italy | Rosso. Bianco. Rosato. Prosecco & Spumante

Italy is well known for its wines. The variety of different grape varieties is also world-class, mixing international grape varieties such as Merlot and Cabernet with the great native growths such as Nebbiolo and Sangiovese. From them are produced the great Piedmontese and Tuscan red wines. Among the local grape varieties alone - also called autochthonous grape varieties - there are about 350 different varieties.

The peculiarities of Italian viticulture have to do with the boot-shaped or the narrow and elongated shape of this not very uniform country. Italy stretches from the Alps to Puglia and Sicily and is characterized by the Apennines, plains, slopes and hills, lakes and rivers. These account for the differences in climate and soil characteristics. The strength of Italian viticulture lies precisely in these different climatic conditions and soil characteristics, which produce unique alternatives and combinations. As far as its vineyards and wineries are concerned, Italy has undergone a radical transformation in recent decades. Efforts have been made to improve production techniques, thereby coming closer to the new taste in wine and making it possible to cultivate the highest quality on a wide scale.

In the following section you will find an overview of all the wineries in our range. We offer high quality wines from the different Italian regions. Clicking on the name of a winery will take you to all the products currently in stock from that producer. - Gerardo [TS06/22]

Aosta
La Crotta di Vegneron

South Tyrol
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Lagrein | Grape Variety
Schiava | Grape Variety Alois Lageder
Baron di Pauli Concilio - Cantina di Trento
Erste + Neue Kellerei Andrian
Kellerei Bozen Kellerei Girlan
Kellerei Kaltern Kellerei Kurtatsch
Kloster Neustift Abtei Muri Gries
Nals Margreid Pfannenstielhof
Schreckbichl Klassik Schreckbichl Praedium
Schreckbichl Lafoa St. Michael-Eppan
Meraner Kellerei Kellerei Terlan
Kellerei Tramin

Piedmont
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Barbaresco | Classic
Barolo | Classic Ca' del Baio
Forteto della Luja Brezza
Marco Porello Renato Corino
Produttori del Barbaresco

Veneto
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Prosecco | Classic
Amarone | Classic Ripasso | Classic
Ca' Rugate Cantina di Custoza
Col Vetoraz Cantina la Salute
Fasoli Gino Campagnola
Gianni Tessari La Jara
Le Colture Le Ragose
Marion Marsuret
Musella Ottella
Tenuta Sant Antonio

Friuli
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Friulano | Rebsorte
Ribolla Gialla | Rebsorte Cantina Rauscedo
Tenuta del Morer Jermann
La Tunella Lis Neris
Sturm Vigneti Pittaro

Lombardy
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Lugana | Classic
Franciacorta | Klassiker Bulgarini
Ca dei Frati Ca' Lojera
Cantrina Feliciana
Guido Berlucchi Ricci Curbastro

Emilia-Romagna
Lambrusco | Classic
Bissoni Medici Ermete

Tuscany
All | Red Wines
Chianti | Classic Brunello | Classic
Antinori Badia a Coltibuono
Camigliano Casanova di Neri
Ciacci Piccolomini Camigliano
Castellare di Castellina Fontodi
Fuligni Poggio Capponi
Uccelliera di Poggianti Tenuta dell' Ornellaia
Tenuta San Guido Tenuta Luce

Umbria
Antonelli
Le Velette

Marche
Borgo Paglianetto
Colli di Serrapetrona Simone Capecci
Oasi degli Angeli

Lazio
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Cantina Sant' Andrea
Tenuta le Quinte

Abruzzo
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Montepulciano | Grape Variety
Camillo Montori Nestore Bosco
Zaccagnini

Campania
Casa d' Ambra

Molise
Di Majo Norante

Basilicata
Elena Fucci

Puglia
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Negroamaro | Grape Variety
Primitivo | Grape Variety A Mano
Masseria Surani Polvanera
Rivera Cantina San Donaci
Tenute Rubino Torrevento
Agricole Vallone Vetrere

Sardinia
Alle | White Wines
Alle | Red Wines Cannonau | Grape Variety
Vermentino | Grape Variety Argiolas
Attilio Contini Cantina Oliena
Cantina del Vermentino Giuseppe Gabbas
Santa Maria la Palma

Sicily
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Etna | Classic
Cusumano Cottanera
Donnafugata Nanfro
Palari Planeta

Calabria
All | White Wines
All | Red Wines Ciro | Classic
Librandi Santa Venere

Wine from Italy | Rosso. Bianco. Rosato. Prosecco & Spumante

Wine from Italy | Rosso. Bianco. Rosato. Prosecco & Spumante

The ancient Greeks called Italy 'Oinotria', the land of wine. A name, but also a distinction, because the Hellenes knew how to appreciate good wines, and Dionysus, who represented the interests of the winegrowers and wine drinkers in their heaven above, would certainly have known how to prevent such an honorable designation, if Italy had not already been the Mecca of all ancient wine connoisseurs. And while up in the north, milky mead foam was still entangled in the Germanic beards, Julius Caesar in Rome was already faced with the important task of selecting from a lush selection of varieties and vintages the wine that would elevate his consular inauguration and state banquet to a real pleasure at the table. Bacchus advised him well, because we know from old sources that he chose a golden yellow Mamertino from Sicily. Perhaps for a vintage Fifty ante Christum natum, because at that time a truly African sun shone on the insular vines.

But he could have brought another drop in well-filled amphorae, because from the slopes close under the Alps down to the southernmost shore of the Mediterranean, the 'Vitis vinifera' or grape had its right of abode in Italy from time immemorial, always associated only with the duty of bringing joy to man. Yes, at a time when a squirrel, without ever touching Iberian soil, would have been able to jump from branch to branch from Portugal to Catalonia, at a time when in the Rhineland one still roasted the bear on the spit and when elsewhere one knew at most how to prepare drinks from herbs, there had long since been joyful vintages south of the Alps.

With good reason conquerors stand low in the exchange rate. When the Roman legions set out to annex Iberia and Gaul and Germania to their empire, they were by no means welcomed with open arms in those lands, and the song of the defeated Varus still delights loyal hearts today. The grim legionaries from Italian lands, who had obviously drunk additional fire with fiery wine, did not only set out with their weapons to conquer the then known world. Somewhere with their troop and carefully protected against the influences of a harsher environment, young shoots of the vine followed them. And when they discovered somewhere a real sunny slope under hilltops, these warriors put aside their weapons and became vine-growers, who carefully and with care and full of beautiful hope entrusted to the good earth the protégés they had brought with them. This is how viticulture came to the north, and today it is still a delightful gift brought to us by foreign conquistadors about two thousand years ago.

But the true value of this gift was discovered by our ancestors only when they accepted the gift and began to cultivate vines themselves. In areas where the grape is able to ripen and where in deep cellars the miracle of wine-making takes place again and again, man is transformed. A good wine leads to good conversation, in good conversation hearts open to each other, common denominators are found, and thus we arrive at one of the highest of values - tolerance. Therefore, wine drinkers are never sectarian, nor do they think of forming their neighbor in their own imperfect image. And just - on this level they have escaped what we still call barbaric with regard to the environment.

With this, the journey from rougher climes leads us back to Italy, where the grape has one of its ancestral homes, Italy - antiquity, Renaissance, Baroque - architects, sculptors, musicians, painters - ancient cultural land! Would this culture have blossomed so wonderfully among brambles? But culture is also mutual human understanding, and even if the contrasts are there, Don Camillo and Peppone will always know how to dampen the clash behind a glass of Lambrusco, and a new Savonarola will pronounce the 'te absolvo' more easily if a common and strong sip of Chianti accompanies the confession of sin.

So we come to the significant question of what wine actually is, what wine means to the Italians and what we, who at least in wine, took the Roman succession? Is wine a drink? Is wine food? Probably both, but above all it is a decisive cultural carrier. And because the need for culture always takes us south across the Alps, we cannot imagine a trip to Italy without making friends with Italian wine. Many of us will always turn to the 'Vino del Paese', the wine that grows in the immediate vicinity of the osteria that so kindly welcomed the hungry guest. Certainly, we are doing well, but we are denying ourselves the 'higher maturity'.

In order to achieve this, we would have to go to the gastronomic sources, to one of those trattorias between Piedmont and Sicily, where the true Buongustai, the real Italian gourmets and Epicureans meet. And we would have to sit over their shoulder when they 'know what' and 'skillfully' select their wines to go with ravioli and tortellini, with pizza or spaghetti, with roast meat or game, with fish or 'frutta di mare'. Top wines, of course, that can stand up to any comparison with other great wines of Europe. And in addition, an offer in fantastic abundance, which one can hardly completely overlook. - Gerardo [TS06/22]