Cheap Italian wine: why and what it is?

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Have you ever read the label of a bottle of cheap Italian wine? Tried to understand where it comes from? More and more often, Italian wines are the cheapest available, damaging the whole Italian wine industry, however, if we all read the labels with a bit more of attention we could easily discover the trick behind the cheap ones.

Cheap Italian wines come either from the south of Italy, mainly Sicily and Apulia, hot climates and big vineyards, or from a few big bottlers that buy low quality wines from around Italy and put them into bottles. The other possible explanation behind a cheap bottle is a wine made with grapes grown outside their ideal terroir and the classic example now is the Pinot grigio, grown everywhere in the world and in Italy, due to its huge demand: two easy to find examples, one from Naked Wines and another Laithwaites .

Another big problem, that helps the sale of low quality and cheap wine, is that wine consumers rely too much on reviews and, often, these don’t tell the whole story. I came across “The Sunday times wine club” website which is run by Laithwaites and read this wine . Immediately, a couple of things caught my attention. First and foremost, the description and precisely when it says that “... as our priciest, top-flight Pinot Grigio. Do not be fooled by Cavazzola's humble Vino da Tavola status - it's made from 100% Grave del Friuli DOC grapes ... only 'declassified'!” which to me does look suspicious for a couple of motives. First why declassify a DOC to a table wine? No reason, unless the grapes are not good enough, and to avoid wasting them, are used to make the Vino da Tavola. Secondly, why table wine? The wine could be declassified to IGT Friuli which is what any good producers would do in this case, better status than “table wine”, and if the wine was a DOC declassified, it will fit the criteria. Table wine, according to the Italian law, is any wine made with any grape grown anywhere in Italy.

But more than anything else, amongst the characteristics of the wine, I have noticed the 11% alcohol content which, for anyone who knows Friulian wines, is on its own, a quality indicator. A good white wine from Friuli has a minimum alcohol content of 13%, high alcohol content is one of their characteristics, white wine from Friuli are also called “superwhites” in contraposition to the “Supertuscan”

I will probably get another call, on my other post about a Naked Wines wine I got a threatening call.... David (me) vs Goliath (them)...

Conclusion. If the wine is cheap, it is worth less than the money you are paying for. I want to leave you with a question, would you rather pay a couple of pounds more and drink a miles better wine or save the 2 pounds and drink a mediocre wine? Look forward to reading your answers.