Twenty regions Twenty grape varieties Twenty independent wines

David Williams invites you on a whistlestop tour of the most varied, exciting and sometimes confusing wine-producing countries on the planet, suggesting a star wine from each of Italy’s main regions

No other wine-producing country can match Italy for diversity.

With wine made in all 20 of the country’s regions, each with its own specialities and stylistic stamps, it is an endlessly diverting, sometimes baffling, occasionally infuriating, but never less than stimulating place to source wine. Here we pick out some recent favourites from every region, all of them made from local varieties and offering what we feel is good value (which, as any wine merchant knows, is not the same thing as cheap).

Aosta

Ermes Paves Blanc de Morgex et de la Salle 2019 (Liberty Wines)

The wines of Ermes Pavese and his wife Milena tick off a lot of wine hipster boxes. You want high-altitude vines? Few in Europe are planted higher than the Paveses’ in the commune of Morgex on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. What about old vines? Pre-phylloxera, mate. Obscure grape varieties? There are just 40ha of Val d’Aosta’s indigenous Prié Blanc in the world. The wine Ermes Paves crafts from these ingredients is beautifully judged: soft, gentle, fragrantly blossomy, and with crystal-clear acidity that custom demands we must compare to an Alpine stream.

Piedmont

Azelia Dolcetto d’Alba Bricco dell’Oriolo 2020 (Justerini & Brooks)

At a time when Nebbiolo has never been more in demand in both its collectable (Barolo, Barbaresco) and youthfully accessible (the much-improved Alba and Langhe Nebbiolo) forms, and when Barbera is taken increasingly seriously, too, it’s no wonder Dolcetto, the third of Piedmont’s big red three, sometimes struggles to get a look in. Understandable, but also a shame, when the best Dolcetto from the best sites in Alba, which Azelia’s undoubtedly is, offers something entirely distinctive: a fresh burst of glossy black cherry and floral notes that is perfectly attuned to summer drinking.

Lombardy

Dirupi Olé Rosso di Valtelina DOC 2016 (Passione Vino)

In the mountainous region of Valtelina, just south of the Swiss border in Lombardy, Nebbiolo takes on the local name of Chiavennasca. Interpreted by skilled producers such as Dirupi’s Pierpaolo di Franco and Davide Fasolini, the highaltitude northerly conditions produce Nebbiolo/Chiavennasca that is quite different from further down in the Langhe, with a beguiling brightness and freshness and a high-definition quality that is all-butirresistible in an unoaked, gently extracted red such as Olé, which is made from 100-year-old vines.

Trentino-Alto Adige

I Mastri Vernacoli Trentino Pinot Grigio 2022 (Boutinot)

Hardwired into millions of wine consumers after years of sub-par supermarket bottlings, Pinot Grigio is still saddled with a reputation as the go-to glass for anyone who prefers not to think at all when they’re drinking. In Trentino, however, Cavit – the high-performing co-operative representing more than 5,000 growers led by the muchadmired winemaker Anselmo Martini – has managed the tricky balancing act of producing wines of character and verve at high volume with aplomb, in wines such as the graceful I Mastri Vernacoli bottling.

Veneto

Ca’la Bionda Valpolicella Classico 2019 (Lea & Sandeman)

Valpolicella is another style and region that has had to deal with a lingering reputation for mass-market dilution, which is why so many producers in the region delegate quality red wine duties,

From page 54 and the best grapes, to Amarone. Others, especially those of a more terroir-oriented disposition such as Ca’la Bionda, have been inspired to use Corvina (plus Corvinone, Molinara and Rondinella) to make wines of ethereal, transparent, fine-tannined, redcherried beauty in the Valpolicella hills.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia

I Clivi Verduzzo 2017 (Astrum)

The striking white wines of Friuli-VeneziaGiulia carry the stamp of the region’s cosmopolitan history. Located in the far north eastern corner of Italy, bordering Austria and Slovenia, it’s a cross-current of cultural influences. The Zanusso family captures the personality beautifully in wines sourced from their old-vine vineyards in the Colli Orientali and Collio zones, with the former the home for the local variety Verduzzo used for this wine, which combines coursing mineral freshness and leafy herbs with luminous tropical fruit.

Emilia-Romagna

Vittorio Graziano

Fontana dei Boschi

Lambrusco Emilia IGT (Winetraders)

There is something of a chicken-and-egg style puzzle to be solved when trying to understand the recent history of Lambrusco. Has this traditional, unpretentious, sparkling red found its feet (and a new market) because of the rise of pét nat styles from elsewhere? Or did topquality Lambrusco provide the inspiration for the modern pét nat scene? The answer is probably somewhere in between, but either way producers such as Vittorio Graziano deserve enormous respect for raising expectations of this classic, intensely drinkable and refreshing style.

Liguria

Bruna Le Russeghine Pigato, Riviera

Ligure di Ponente DOC 2021 (Graft) Liguria is perhaps the least wellrepresented Italian wine region in the UK; indeed, it’s rare to find much beyond the region’s own spectacular coastline. That’s less a matter of quality or style than it is size of production – this is one of those situations where local demand genuinely does outstrip demand, with Pigato, the local variant of Vermentino, responsible, in the hands of stylish producers such as Bruna, for wines of salty sea-breezy freshness and flavours of lime, fennel and dill.

Tuscany

Montenidoli Vernaccia di San

Gimignano 20 (Les Caves de Pyrene)

OK, so it’s a little perverse to pick a white grape to represent a region that is dominated by often-superb Sangiovese. But Tuscany’s whites deserve a little wider renown, especially when they’re as good as Montenidoli’s. Sourced from a 24ha vineyard surrounded by 200ha of forest in San Gimignano, it’s a riposte to the notion that Vernaccia is a necessarily dull, mediocre white grape; given a little time on skins, in traditional fashion, it has bags of nutty-herbal, stone-fruited appeal.