Northern Italian Wonders... Italy's Best White Wines Part.1

Hello bonjour and welcome to a new Altiwine Exchange video. Welcome to this channel where we taste, explore and explain the wonderful world of wine. This is the fourth episode dedicated to the wines from Italy, through our series all about Italy here, but we've made other videos about Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and beyond. That's what we do here. We've already looked in Italy at a general overview of all Italian wines. Once we've looked at the sparkling wines, with 2 episodes dedicated to those, and today I want to take you around the country to investigate what kind of white wonders you can buy from arguably the country that has the most exciting gastronomy and wine scene in Europe, or maybe in the world, or maybe that's France. Anyhow, Italy is probably most famous for its red wines as well as its sparkling wines, right? I mean, Prosecco is ultra famous now, Moscato of course, and we talked about those in previous episodes, and of course, the red wines from Piedmont, the Barolo Barbarescos, the wines from Tuscany, the Chiantis, the Abruzzo, Puglia and Sicily, just to name a few, are very well known and highly regarded on the international wine scene. But what about the whites in Italy? Italy is the largest wine producing country in the universe, so of course, they make a lot of white wines too. So let's have a look into those. There's much to cover all around this enormous wine country that is Italy, so we're going to be needing 2 episodes. Here we'll look at the whites from the North, because that's the majority of Italian whites, and perhaps arguably the most interesting? Well, we'll find out. In our next episode, we'll look at the rest of the country, but let's go right up across the North of Italy now. And yes, Grigio is without a doubt the most famous stale Italian white wine, arguably, but I think, right? It's the Prosecco of stale wines. It's affordable, the Italians produce oceans of it, and it's simple, it's pleasing, it's slow-squenching, it's fruity, it's not complicated to understand, it's light-bodied, it's sometimes a little bit sweet to satisfy and please most palates. Oops, I think I've already said more than one word on Grigio here in the end. I won't elaborate too much about Grigio, as I want to focus on other appellations, other grapes that make lesser-known and more diverse wines, but in short, because I have to cover Pinot Grigio if we're talking about Italian wines, to summarize essential facts about it, Grigio is the same grape as the French Pinot Gris. The grape has slightly pinkish or grey a color, hence the name, Gris or Grigio meaning grey, and it makes rather fruity wines with notes of stone fruits, a bit of apricot, some little white peach, it's floral, it's got scents of honey and a bit of jasmine, it's light in body and relatively low in alcohol, still around 12-12.5, some good acidity with sometimes some residual sugars to make it more appealing to the masses, it just balances out the acidity. And that's it. Simple yet pleasing, thirst-quenching white wines, and that's what we like it for. I must say that Grigio is generally made in the Veneto region, to the northeast of Italy, around Venice of course, and they often come as Pinot Grigio delle Venezie. And let's move on and explore more interesting Italian wines now, if more interesting, perhaps. Let's see. And really, it's not necessarily very obvious to subdivide Italian wines. There's so much diversity all across the country, every village has a speciality with a different grape, a different story, a slightly different style. I've chosen here to put together in this chapter 3 classic, ultra-classic styles that are really the wines that people that start to dig into Italian wines, start digging with, the ones you study first, if you are a professional or a connoisseur, or you want to become a professional or a connoisseur, you go to wine school, you start with those. And they are in fact of relatively similar styles, despite being made in different areas and from different grapes. Always different grapes in different areas in Italy, as we know. So those are Roero, Arneis, Gavi and Soave. All of those 3 are DOCG wines, so classified in the highest level of the Italian wine classification system because they're good, because they're classic, traditional and because they've been around for a long time, so classified higher in the hierarchy. All 3 are round and smooth styles of dry white wines. They're pleasing, they're crisp, they're dry, they're quite fruity, but they also have that smooth texture with some roundness to them, some depth and complexity, but not a huge amount of it relative to perhaps other styles like Chardonnay, Burgundy or the Mosel Riesling. They're all in between relatively neutral wines and very fragrant wines. A little bit of fruit, but not extremely pungent or anything, not extremely acidic either, but also oily and balanced, so really balanced and in-between styles. And somewhat, I'd say, this is a bit of the signature of many Italian white wines. They're good, but not obviously distinguishable or identifiable with very specific flavours and traits, like the Chardonnay, Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc can be, right? You following? And that's probably why they're staying relatively anonymous on the international wine scene. You taste them, you taste one, you like it, you like them, but you don't necessarily remember them very well on the long run, because there's nothing absolutely distinctive about them. And that's partially because they all come from different corners of the country and made from different grapes as well. That's unless you visited this area and experienced it for yourself, you may not necessarily print this in your memory, because those areas have a name, different grapes, different names, and can be a little bit confusing. So let's clarify. Rueyro Arneis is made from the Arneis grape in the area of Rueyro in the province of Cuneo in Piedmont. See? It's already getting a little confusing, but bear with me. So we're not far from the Barolo and Barbaresco Reds, areas where they're made. Not far from Lange as well, or Asti. Those may ring the bell a little better. Possibly, Rueyro Arneis is the most distinguishable of the three. I love it because it's very fruity, it's a little floral, and it's very zingy. It's probably my favorite style in the lot, personally, just personal preference here, because it's mineral and crisp, yet zingy and vibrantly fruity, lemony, I really love and certainly would recommend to try Rueyro Arneis if you haven't. Now, Gavi, which is the most famous and the most highly regarded white wine in Piedmont. That's not a small thing, because they're made around the historic town of Gavi, in spectacular landscapes, on hilly terrain, mineral-rich soils, a very specific terroir with a delicious local Cortese grape. Very long winemaking tradition in Gavi, high reputation, succulent wines, again, a little floral, a little fruity, oily, textural, try them. And then, not in Piedmont anymore, but in the Veneto, just like Pinot Grigio, so we're moving a little bit to the east, those are really highly regarded in Suave. While Grigio is the first quenching wine of Veneto, Suave is the creme de la creme of whites in this region, the Veneto. It's made from Garganega grapes near the city of Verona, around the same area of Valpolicella is made. Again, what I love in Suave is the texture, the minerality sometimes also comes through, the balance that it has, which really is the mark, you may have noticed, of good Italian wines. Those 3 styles that I've just described, 3, are the Italian Whites 101 in the north of Italy. But, let's explore 2 northern corners of Italy that not that many people hear about or talk about, that also make whites in perhaps more distinguishable styles. Let's go! And yes, these 2 areas are lesser known, and that's because they're really in corners of far away corners of northern Italy. So, no one accidentally ends up visiting them, unless they really want to visit them, unlike I guess Verona, which is a very beautiful historic city, or Venice of course, that are very popular touristic attractions, or even the Piedmont wine countries that are not too far off the road, once you're in Milan for example. Friuli Venezia Giulia is in the very far eastern end of Italy, after Veneto, towards the border with Slovenia. That's how far it is. But they make some very attractive whites. What's interesting there is that they use mostly non-traditional grape varieties. For Italy, more international grapes like Riesling and Pinot Bianco, grown on an overall cool climate, which is good for whites, that goes from being a rather Mediterranean climate to the south, to an alpine continental climate as you go north, because it's also very mountainous as you go north over there, once you leave the coast. So the wines are very crisp, very zingy, very pure and precise, affine, very clean expression of these international white grapes like Sauvignon, Riesling and Chardonnay, really a different option for you to explore if you like those grapes, and you're bored, you've tried everything in every other country, or you just want to explore those. Very good option. In Friuli, they also make white wines with a local grape that is called Friulano, which is the region's signature white grape that makes classic examples of this refreshing white wine style that I was talking about. So certainly worth having in mind Friuli Venezia Giulia. The other and last area I wanted to highlight here in the north of Italy is the Trentino Alto Adige. Here we are at the very north end of Italy, in that little spot down the very north, literally deep into the Alps mountains, in a long valley that goes deep through the mountains towards Liechtenstein. So definitely here is an alpine climate, pure air, altitude, loads of day and night temperature variations, mineral and rocky soils, which make some very crisp and precise whites. A little saline, always floral, with very clean, fruity, distinctive, precise fruity notes. So that's a fantastic area for whites, but that people don't know about because it's more niche, somewhat like Savoie is in France, or Switzerland. All those wines are really niche. You don't find these everywhere, but they are fantastic. Here they make French grapes like Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, or Pinot Bianco. Those are all French by the way. But they also make Germanic grapes like Muller Torgau and Sylvana. So you've got a really interesting combination, a broad range of different choices, different flavours, but always in this very pure, precise expression. I personally wish I could have more of these wines available to me, honestly. You don't find those in France, unfortunately. So if you come across some, go for them and find out for yourself. It's a wonderful world of wine out there, so we might as well take the good things. And there's plenty of those in Trentino. And I'll leave it here for today. As I mentioned, in our next episode, we'll highlight some of the very best styles of wines all over the rest of Italy, Tuscany, Umbria, around Rome, around Naples, in Sicily, etc. Plenty to learn about, plenty to talk about. So make sure to stay tuned to the channel. For this, I thank you for watching, and I will see you soon, in the wonderful world of wine. Salute! Arrivederci! Ciao ciao!