In the world of wine, the reputation of Italian wine is almost the same as that of France. The long brewing technology and the heritage of civilization make the Italian people's love for wine almost fanatical. What's the grade of Italian wine? How can I tell if red wine is good?
Italian wine
Italian wine also has clear laws and regulations. However, for historical reasons, the definition of this kind of law seems funny. These legal systems themselves are right. To some extent, they have greatly protected the wine industry of Italy, which is very beneficial. Too harsh system makes some low-grade wine surpass many high-quality wine Grade wine, and this so-called low grade wine is not rough, but more refined.
Italian wine grade
Therefore, to understand the level of Italian wine is just to cross a threshold. If you want to enter the palace of Italian wine, you need to understand a lot of complex Italian grape populations and regional characteristics.
Italian wine has a wide variety of grapes, only in their doc system, covering more than 300 regions, more than a thousand different types of wine. Some of the grapes that are not native grapes, even the grapes grown in Italy and brewed locally, are of high quality, but can not be included in the DOC and docg regulations.
Let's take a look at the wine grades given by the law.
Lowest grade: VDT, ordinary table wine, also known as ordinary table wine.
Ordinary table wine is mainly produced in southern Italy and Sicily, where is a hot Mediterranean climate, grape maturity is very high, so here the wine yield is huge, but the quality is average.
Grade 2: IGT, regional table wine.
In fact, this level was only introduced in 1992. The quality and price of regional table wine are higher than that of ordinary table wine. Regional table wine often has strong regional characteristics, so we need to know more about the characteristics of Italian regional grapes in order to better choose the wine suitable for ourselves at this level.
This level of wine has no special restrictions on grape varieties, as long as it is wine grapes can be used to make wine, whether it is local or other domestic.
Many new Italian winemakers have made excellent wines from non local grapes, which surpass high-grade wines in quality and price. Even so, they can only be listed as IGT table wine because they use non local grape varieties.
The most representative region of this level is Tuscany of Italy, where grape cultivation and wine making technology are pioneers. The super Tuscany here does not belong to the official grading system of Italy, because the main grapes for wine making do not belong to local varieties. For example, Cabernet Sauvignon is used as the main grape for mixed brewing, which violates the grading system, so it can not be included in the high grade. The most convincing is that in 2018, it was named the top 100 wine list by wine observers. It was one of the representatives of the first batch and the most classic Super Tuscany wine. Later, it was so influential that Italian officials had to grant it doc level.
Grade 3: Doc, wine of legal producing area.
This level of wine has strict legal restrictions on wine grape varieties, minimum alcohol content, brewing technology and storage methods, and even has certain evaluation criteria on taste characteristics. Based on this high standard, the quality of Italian doc grade wine is excellent.
Highest grade: docg, high quality wine from statutory production area.
This is the highest grade of Italian wine. If you want to become a docg, you must maintain the doc level for more than five years. Moreover, the production of wine is more severe, which is far more severe than doc. Finally, you have to pass the tasting approval of the review committee. Therefore, all wines of this level basically wear a bow tie.