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The future of Italian wines
ITALIAN wines certainly have a past: the Romans called Italy 'oenotria tellus', which means the land of wine. It was also the Romans who brought the vine to the great French wine areas (the Greeks had pre- sumably grown vines around their colonies in Provence), including Bordeaux, where my namesake established Château Au- sone. As far as Italian wine was concerned, this was a fatal mistake, for the mother country lost her pre-eminence as the land of wine par excellence to her upstart colony, and has never, in the export markets at least, managed to regain it. The idea that Italy could challenge France as a producer of quality wines would be greeted by most wine enthusiasts with disbelief, if not derision. That would have been my reaction until very recently — until 10 October, to be precise, when I attended a remarkable tasting, perhaps the first of its kind ever held, at the Stationers' Hall, put on by Forum Vinorum, a non-profit- making organisation dedicated to impro- ving the public perception of Italian wines.
The immediate impression conveyed by the 72 wines on show was, perhaps, quin- tessentially Italian: profusion leading to confusion, anarchy and chaos. Not that the testing was badly organised or arranged, but how does one arrange Italian wines? By area (as in France or Germany or Spain)? Some of the areas are tiny, hardly even areas at all, others are intercon- nected, so that won't altogether do. By grape variety, as in the New World coun- tries? That would mean putting cabernets from the Alto Adige with others from Tuscany. The solution adopted was a mixture of the two, together with other less obvious categories, such as 'dry, non- aromatic' and 'full dry native varieties'.
The initial sense of confusion was more than made up for by the quality of a great number of wines, of every kind which a merciful God could have devised, and just one or two, including by some higher irony the sickly beverage named Vin Santo, which must be the work of the devil. There were pale dry whites with the intense aroma which one associates with Alsace or Germany, reds of a complexity challenging comparison with bordeaux, light charming reds more delicious than beaujolais, and deep heavy reds stronger than Château- neuf; there was a dessert wine with the freshness and elegance (though without the botrytis) of a great barsac, and a fortified wine with the nuttiness of a dry oloroso
sherry and the refreshing acidity of a verdelho madeira.
The pale dry whites come, as you may have guessed, from the north-eastern areas of Alto Adige/Sildtirol, Veneto and Friuli. The Alto Adige wines are the most scented, light and delicate; the more powerful Friuli wines are probably the best of all Italian whites. The majority of the wines from both areas are made from
non-native varieties, riesling, gewiirztra- miner, pinot bianco and pinot grigio, though the native Tokai produces interest-
ing results. Veneto's most famous white is, of course, Soave, and Forum Vinorum found one with a positive flavour and honeyed bouquet which bore no relation to the metallic, hangover-inducing poison to be found in most off-licences.
As for complex, elegant reds, you would hope to find these in central Italy, Tuscany and Umbria, and the key name should be Chianti. How often does it live up to its reputation (if it any longer has one)? Very rarely, in this country at least, would have been my reply, but once again Fortin] Vinorum has made me change my mind. Chianti Classico Riservas like Badia a Coltibuono 1974 showed what a rich yet subtle collection of scents a mature Chianti can gather to temper its stalkiness. There were other revelations from Forum Vinorum: tasting Altesino's Brunello di Montalcino, a sacred cow restored to sanctity; Maurizio Zanella's 1982 Cabernet, astonishingly clarety and elegant; Quintarelli's marvellous Valpo- licella; and the dessert and fortified wines mentioned earlier, Maculan's Torcolato 1982, and the Vecchio Samperi 10 anni Marsala, a wine which surely deserves to come back into fashion.
Why then is Italy's reputation as a quality wine producer so tarnished? Partly because she has exported so much cheap wine under 'quality' labels, Chianti, Bar- dolino, Soave, Valpolicella. The DOC laws governing these areas should surely be tightened up. Secondly, many of her best wines seem to be either unavailable (like the Quintarelli Valpolicella) or in limited production, made by individualists who disobey the rules (Sassicaia). These prob-
lems are not insurmountable. If they are addressed by people with an eye for public relations, then the old oenotria tellus could regain much of the glory she lost to France.
Ausonius
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