Italy - Italian Wines

Italian Wine Sub-regions:

Brunello
Piedmont
Super Tuscan

Italian Wine Region Summary

Brunello

A small medieval village located 1,850 ft above sea level and enjoying one of the warmest and driest climates in Tuscany, the attractive hilltop town of Montalcino is considered the birthplace of Tuscany’s richest wine: Brunello, a diminutive of the word Bruno, meaning ‘brown’. This robust, long-aging red is among the most prestigious and sought-after wines in the world.

Piedmont

Nestled at the foot of the Western Alps, Piedmont (or Piemonte to the locals) is regarded as one of the world’s finest wine regions, arguably second in Italy only to Tuscany. It is a land of castles, vineyards and romantic hills shrouded in mist, home to more DOCG wines than any other Italian region and also more viticulturally advanced, thanks to the sophisticated oenology that arrived in the area after its mountain defences were repeatedly breached by the Romans, and then the French.

'Super Tuscan'

The term ‘Super-Tuscan’ refers to a number of Italian winemaking estates in the traditional Chianti region of Tuscany which in the 1960s and 1970s began to rebel against the dogmatic regulations of Italian wine-making authorities, producing a number of innovative and highly prized wines which have gone on to become some of the most expensive and valuable investment wines in the country.