The Italian Wine Label, or “What the hell is this?”

11 Comments »

Tom, great article and great blog overall, I really enjoy reading the new posts.

When I enter new bottles of Italian wine into my Cork’d profile (corkd.com/people/nasv), it always takes me a little while to figure out how to fill in all the text boxes. I usually resort to the information the retailer uses to classify it. I’ll be sure to send you future questions or ambiguities.

Great article and great blog.

-Nico
tintorecords.com/tintos

Comment by Nico — January 30, 2007 @ 11:42 am

Tom,

Nice job .. you would need almost a book to describe all of the nuances of the label ..for instance, a blog on Amarone .. where produced, how, and made from which grapes..etc.

I may be the exception, but I actually like that labels are different. I enjoy learning about how to decipher labels from different countries and regions. For me that’s part of the passion for wine.

That being said, I can fully understand why there is a an effort to standarize and simplify labels.. for economic reasons.

In some ways, if that happens … although better for business, I’ll miss the differences found on many French, German, Italian and other country labels.

Thanks for the blog ..

Comment by R. Beaudin — January 30, 2007 @ 1:17 pm

Nice again Tom. It’s obvious where your roots are :D.
I just wanted to add a small comment. The IGT-category is a very tricky one as it says absolutely nothing about the quality level of the wine proposed. The Indicazione Geographica Tipica seemingly only indicates where the wine came from, yet, a lot of the IGT-type wines are restricted to often more complex rules than the DOC/DOCG-wines (i.e. in Alto Adige and Basilicata they are fairly strict). The only difference with DOC/DOCG-rules is that, in most cases, they admit different grape varieties, different blends (however these are often also subject of severe restriction) and different elevage. The IGT-category originate somewhere in the eighties, if I remember correctly, and was contrued as a kind of legal manoeuvre for catching up with the new evolutions in the Italian wine business. By then Antinori, Ricasoli, Lungarotti and the likes produced formidable wines under the name of Vino da Tavola as they were not allowed to use the DOC/DOCG-names because these modern wines were made according to practises deviating from the original wine laws. The IGT-category was created to group these wines in. Somewhat later however, the Italian government decided to ‘modernize’ the DOC/DOCG-rules according to the new techniques used by a lot of highly respected wineries in order to keep the DOC/DOCG-names linked up with these prestigious grape juices. So, the IGT-pack of wines is an extremely heterogeneous grouping of wines that can be either cheapish junk, cutting edge experiment or top class reference bottle.
Example: the wines of the Emilia-Romagnan producer Umberto Cesari. His ‘Liano’ was first a Sangiovese del Romagna DOC, now it is a Rubicone IGT because of the Cab. Sauv. added and the different elevage.

Comment by TSchampaert — January 31, 2007 @ 4:58 am

TS-

All true…too true, unfortunately. The addition of the IGT designation was SUPPOSED to clarify the Italian clssification system, but in the end, it only further obfuscated things…To me, the solution is something like what is done in Spain - No hierarchy of DOCG, DOC, IGT, Vino da Tavola, etc…Every unique growing area with a notable history including such things as unique growing conditions, grape varieties, styles, etc. should be granted an appellation with it’s own unique standards that are approriate for all of these factors, something more like the “DOP” (Denominazione d’Origine Protetta) system in place for Italian food products (for example Sarnese-Nocerino plum tomatoes from Campania)In essence, let the history, land, grapes, traditions guide the classification rather than payola and politics, which is what’s in play now…

TOM CIOCCO

Comment by Tom C — January 31, 2007 @ 11:58 am

Tom,

This is a great artical, and I enjoy reading it as I love racking my brains over the enigma that is Italian wine. It truly is an interesting topic of discussion, the appellation controversy especially.

I have noticed in my wineshop travels recently that IGT-labeled wines are more prolific than ever, most notably the less expensive (Villa Puccini for instance) “IGT Supertuscans.” This is for me both promising and concerning, as it depicts a more informed American consumer who has begun to realize what Antinori and Co. were trying to do 30 some years ago, but that these same consumers may have just missed the point. It also means that now we may be allowed to add marketing to the list of things Italians do well. There are almost as many Tuscan wines that have downgraded to IGT status to allow the use of various international varietals as there are Chiantis on my local wine shelf. (I’ve tried many of them, and I wouldn’t place any in the same ring as such proprietary reds as Solaia, Ornellaia, Sassicaia or Tignanello). Yet they sell well. Have Americans finally become tired of Chianti?

And this all reminds me of a gentleman named Angelo Gaja, who did something years ago that shocked the wine world (for presumably different reasons than Villa Puccini). Gaja chose to drop the DOCG status of Barbaresco from his top single-vinyard wines in favor of the freedom that a more general “DOC Langhe” appellation would allow him. Adding barbera to his world class Barbarescos? Was it the beginning of the “Super-Piedmontese” revolution? Time has proven otherwise, but then again this move was never really a marketing one (or so he claims. Besides, now he’s got wines such as Sito Moresco for that).

I’m with you, that these old world producers are losing sight of Barbaresco’s soil through the nebbia (another good Italian wine term) of politics and payola. Back to the basics, I say, but I might continue to allow Antinori and Co. a little wiggle room.

Comment by Eric — January 31, 2007 @ 2:59 pm

Eric-

Thanks for the comments…I think that we’re pretty much in agreement, but I think that in the end, the IGT designation is a bust. In many cases it is so permissive that any chance of deriving a sense of place or tradtion from an IGT area has been nearly sytematically wrung out of the scene, often making IGT wines more like the “Vino da tavola” wines that this designation was meant to replace.

See my comment just above yours for my humble prescription for reforming Italy’s appellation norms.

TOM CIOCCO

Comment by Tom C — January 31, 2007 @ 4:27 pm

Tom,

SO right you are! But that just Italy, and maybe it’s just this that makes me go nuts on Italy: everything (yes, almost … I know ;-)) is great in Italy, but for the government and the politics!
And indeed, your idea isn’t too bad, this extension of the DOP, yet, my concern then is: fixed, historical and ontogenetical rules are OK, but they are easily manipulated again and again in every ‘politics’ discourse - that is, marketing discourse included - hailed as benchmarks/standards/ultimate criteria. They are often to easily considered as set rules and examples. And, as it’s the so-called nature of every ideological discourse to equal the difference, incorporating every type of differing, innovative and anti-traditional/natural experimental effort, any way to experiment ‘as if’ or experiment with promising result is deemed to be a category to be distrusted. That’s the way any discourse works, sadly.
I don’t want to say it’s just all wrong out here, out there, everywhere, but I’d like to be very careful and a little bit suspicious in these things myself, just for the sake of nuance and unpredjudiced discovery.
Think of producers like Montevertine: they aren’t allowed anymore to call their Sangiovese wines Chianti as these are e.g. still mainly produced in concrete vats and old Slavonian bottes, a practice which was very common 70 years ago. Ricasoli, Antinori and the likes changed the Chianti world and set a new standard (former VdT and IGT practices were incorporated in the reformed DOC/DOCG-rules). Their Chianti is now ‘the’ Chianti …
A paradox, but that’s how it works, with almost every - even the most authentic - kind of denominations. And that’s where the problem is truly situated: what is authenticity? That’s just it, and that’s where every discourse ends: beyond the claim of authenticity there is nothing, as authenticity is the last and most solid argument any discourse is built on. Last and solid, only because of it’s inevitable and inherent ambiguity …

And the rest … is wine Salute!

Comment by TSchampaert — January 31, 2007 @ 5:23 pm

Hi Tom, thank you for the great article. I was wondering if you could help me by labeling the #s you have on the label - 1 to 9. For example, #1 is _________ and #2 is the quality rating; #3 is ___________ and #4 is year produced or vintage; #5 is ________ and #6 is missing?; #7 is size of the bottle, etc. Thank you - I think this information will really help me.

Another question, could you explain the year on the bottle - is that the year the grapes are harvested or the year the wine is produced? I know this may be a silly question…but I honestly don’t know the answer.

My best, Jeana

Comment by Jeana — February 5, 2007 @ 5:36 pm

Hi Jeana-

The label that I posted with the story was intended more as a visual accompanyment, but your questions are valid ones certainly….the only problem is that the place where these features appear on THIS PARTICULAR LABEL will differ from the next, and the one after, but in any event…

#1 is the KIND of wine (Amarone)
#2 is the appellation level (DOC in this case)
#3 is, in this case, the sub-classification (Classico) which specifies the older, traditional production zone
#4 is obvious
#5 is the producer’s name
#6 is indeed missing
#7 is clearly bottle size (750 ml)
#8 is alcohol by volume
#9 is National origin (Italy)

The date on a bottle of wine represents the harvest year AND the year that the wine was produced…the only date that can vary is the BOTTLING date which almost never appears on a label.

Comment by Tom C — February 6, 2007 @ 11:03 am

A baser explanation of the difference between the funtion of DOC vs. DOCG is that the former guarantees geographic origin, grape content and certain aspects of winemaking/production (not quality), the latter, presumably affirms a basic threshold thereof.

There is also the phenomenon of “a cascata” or cascading which muddies the waters of any of those designations.

-john

Comment by jbl — February 21, 2007 @ 2:43 pm

‘#1 is the KIND of wine (Amarone)’

#1a is important too, ‘della Valpolicella’
ie from a wine growing zone in the province of Verona, east of Lake Garda (the lake where those Italians free of heart disease live, which I have driven around and I can see it freeing me of many things especially money…)

Sometimes this is redundant in that, the wine type is not grown anywhere else in Italy, but not redundant to those that don’t know…you probably wouldn’t see a Nero D’Avola della Alto Adige

Comment by CW — March 7, 2007 @ 10:04 am

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