Italian Red Wine

Italian Red Wine

The Ancient Greeks coined the word Oenotria, or “land of vines”, to describe Italy and it remains a land intimately entwined with its vines. Indeed, much of northern Europe’s first vineyards were planted by those all-conquering proto-Italians, the Romans.

It is rather tempting to regard Italian red wines as a single category of wine but, with the country extending from the Alps in the north to the latitudes akin to Northern Africa in the south, there is considerable variation in grape varieties and finished wine. No region of Italy is without vineyards, although some have more renown than others.