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The Italian abroad wine blog is my wine blog and diary. I founded Italyabroad.com in 2003 and have been living abroad for almost 20 years and this blog is a collection of my thoughts mainly about Italian wine and food, but also wine and food in general. I come from an Italian wine making family and got acquainted with wine at a very early age, but I don't just love Italian wine, I love any good wine and enjoy plenty of it, as well as good food and travelling, and often my posts include a bit of everything.
To help you understand Italian wines, we have designed a series of Italian wine regions maps featuring DOC and DOCG wines showing the origins and the grapes making your favourite Italian wines. I also wrote a post on the Italian wine appellation system explaining and demystifying the Italian wine classification system and what it really means for Italian wine lovers and wine drinkers in general.
Lastly, we have a Youtube channel where you can watch me tasting some of our wines and answer your questions about Italian wines and grapes, from the real meaning of DOC to what is an orange wine.
Hope you enjoy reading this wine blog and please get in touch if you have any question.
Andrea
I recently visited Marsala, a beautiful city located along the coast on the western most part of Sicily, a city with plenty of history and famous for giving the name to the Marsala wine, a fortified wine produced with grapes grown in the area. During my short stay, I ate great seafood, I could eat seafood and fish all day everyday, and tasted plenty of wine, but the real revelation, the hidden gem, was the Marsala wine with its several versions
Historic Prosecco producers, the ones in the DOCG area, want to get rid of the “Prosecco” name on their labels and only use “Valdobbiadene” to try and differentiate their Prosecco from the cheaper versions even though I have seen plenty of cheap Valdobbiadene Prosecco.
Panettone, the Italian Christmas cake that should be added to the Unesco Intangible heritage due to its worldwide appeal, it is now eaten all over the world, not just on Christmas day anymore and it has moved beyond what we now call “Tradizionale”, its original and nowadays, almost boring recipe, also known as Panettone Milanese, from Milan, where it was originally created the first time
Duty has always been an easy way for any Government to raise finances, often hidden and justified, as a deterrent to the binge drinking culture or to alleviate the financial impact on social services, police and the NHS. The duty doesn’t just affect wine, it touches all alcoholic drinks, based on their alcohol content, and until last year, they were all considered as one
Yesterday we received the news that our gin has been awarded a Gold Medal at the latest International Wine and Spirit Competition, we are not really surprised, we had selected the gin well before the award, in a blind tasting, if anything, it proves once more that we have big noses
Our supermarkets’ shelves are full of extra virgin olive oils “made in Italy”, the Italian flag is always on the front of the bottle so that consumers can see it, but the origin, the provenance of the oil or olives is never there, it is always either on the back, if there is a back, or on the side, in small fonts
Pasta is a staple of Italian cuisine and there is a huge variety of pasta shapes and sauces, with plenty of very little known local dishes, however, with the rules above, anyone will be able to cook a tasty pasta dish
Last night if you have, like I did, watched Panorama on BBC1, it was about “Britain’s Drink Problem”, how do we solve it? We have learned from history that prohibition doesn’t work, and minimum pricing in a way is part of that approach, so it cannot be the solution, it can help temporarily until a permanent solution is found, but to solve the problem we need much more. We don’t need laws or taxes, we need education and get rid of the 3L strong cider or any other similar drink. We need to educate people, change the drinking culture
Popular Italian wines, which are the most popular Italian wines? This is the question I often get asked and unfortunately there isn’t a single and straight forward answer. It all depends, but before even attempting to answer the question, we need to clarify what we intend for popular, the most famous, the most sold or the most expensive Italian wines?
If you haven't heard or read it yet, Prosecco rose’ will be soon making its appearance on our supermarkets, and not, shelves and I am certain, many wine drinkers can’t wait to buy it. Prosecco Rose is not to be confused with any sparkling rose’ wine currently being sold, Prosecco Rose will have written “Prosecco Rose” on the label and I am expecting it to be a DOC wine
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