Nero d’Avola is Sicily’s most planted red grape. Roughly 15,400 hectares of it, more than anything else on the island, by a wide margin. And for most of the 20th century, if you drank it, there’s a good chance you had no idea. It wasn’t hiding in some obscure corner…
I’ll admit something. For years I thought the stem was there to make the whole thing look fancy. Hold it delicately, take a small sip, nod like you know something. Meanwhile the person next to you is drinking wine out of a coffee mug and having, objectively, a better time….
The wine your uncle brings to Thanksgiving because it’s cheap and nobody will complain is fermented and aged in a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Actual underground cathedrals, carved into rock, holding bottles at a constant twelve degrees. I’m not exaggerating for effect. It’s called that officially. Cathedrals. And for a…
Bardolino and Valpolicella both earned DOC status in 1968. Same year. Same handful of grapes, mostly Corvina, with Rondinella and a bit of Molinara rounding things out. The vineyards sit close enough that you could plausibly see one from the other on a clear day, across the top of Lake…
The Group Chat Nobody Asked For But Everyone Needed If you’ve ever been to an Italian aperitivo and noticed that Prosecco always arrives first, you’ll know exactly what’s coming. Meanwhile, Champagne turns up late with an attitude, and Cava quietly refills everyone’s glass without being asked. In short, this group…
At one point in the 1970s, Soave outsold Chianti in the United States. Not a niche category win. The actual best-selling Italian wine in the country, red or white, full stop. Ask most people about Soave today and you’ll get a shrug. Or a memory of a thin, forgettable white…
Go into any trattoria in the Langhe and order Barolo. What lands in front of you looks less like a wine glass and more like a fishbowl that skipped leg day. Nobody blinks. Ten minutes later you order a Gavi and get something the size of a shot glass wearing…
In 1985, Americans bought 11.5 million cases of a fizzy, sweet, pink-tinged Italian wine called Riunite. That’s still a record. Nobody’s broken it since. For over three decades, it held the title of best-selling imported wine in the United States. Not just from Italy. From anywhere. “Riunite on ice, that’s…
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