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
Is natural wine a distinct category of wine, superior, over conventional wines? Is natural wine, by definition, a better wine, independently of how it tastes? Should we choose natural wine over conventional wine? These were only some of the questions that loomed in my mind after attending a natural wine fair in Italy, an event unlike any other I had attended before.
If you follow my blog, you read more than once of my frustration in not being able to find natural wines. I believe that a wine is first and foremost a wine, and whether natural or not, becomes irrelevant if the wine is not drinkable. Until recently, all natural wines I had tasted were either undrinkable or with an unjustified price, so we decided to wait despite the trend. Making natural wines is certainly more expensive compared to conventional wines, but also more difficult, since it follows the natural process and the wine maker can do very little to control and guarantee the outcome
But whether you believe in natural wines or not, the wine industry is moving toward a more sustainable and natural approach and if natural wine is the current trend, once the trend fades out and it will, the right wine making process will be something in between that will take into account its impact on the environment whilst ensuring that wine drinkers do not experience “mousiness”. Until then…
I have tasted plenty of orange wines and it is hard to find good ones, it is now a worldwide trend and everyone is trying to jump on the wagon, exactly like sparkling wines, properly made orange wines are difficult to find because are more difficult to make, finding the balance between tannins and freshness is an art, but just like any other great wine, when properly made, are amazing wines
Natural wines are made without any human intervention, only natural yeast, no additions or corrections, the juice becomes wines following its own rhythm. Organic and biodynamic wines are wines certified by a third party, confirming that they have been made according their respective regulations, for natural wines there isn’t yet a third party that can certify their being “natural” and currently it is up to the interpretation given to the word by the wine maker and it is possible, to find “natural wines” made following different approaches with different results
Natural wines were the wines made long time ago, when we did not know all we now know about wine and wine making process and today technology wasn’t available, wineries were still pretty much building with barrels and everything was done manually, from pressing the grapes to bottling. I started my wine journey drinking natural wines, wine made by my grandparents
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