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The Italian Abroad Wine Blog

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

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Franciacorta creates 134 subzones

March 16, 2024    Tags: View Comments (0)

Creating 134 subzones risk further diluting the brand and worsening confusion among wine drinkers, many of whom, still associate Italian sparkling wine with Prosecco and are unwilling to pay a premium for Italian alternatives. When faced with a choice between a bottle of Franciacorta or Champagne, based on my experience made of tastings and conversations with thousands of wine drinkers, 7 out 10 still opt for Champagne, despite not knowing how it is made, often choosing it solely for its reputation

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Every oil has its own dialect.

March 11, 2024    Tags: View Comments (0)

As you might be aware, my enthusiasm for extra virgin olive oil knows no bounds, and the more I learn about it, the deeper my passion grows, leading to our range of extra virgin olive oil getting bigger and bigger. I love olive oil because there are plenty of similarity with wine, even more, when made by small producers and one of them, during my visit to Olio Capitale in Trieste said something that really struck me, I never thought of olive oil like this

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Natural wine or wine?

February 27, 2024    Tags: View Comments (0)

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.

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Pairing wine and food

January 27, 2024    Tags: View Comments (0)

Finding the right wine and food pairing not only is the epitome for any wine and food lover, it takes the dining experience to another level. But before we start talking about pairings, it is important to consider the characteristics of the food and wine individually. The general criteria for pairing wine and food follows two approaches: matching by agreement or matching by contrast.

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What will Italian wine lovers drink in 2024?

January 07, 2024    Tags: View Comments (0)

Lets hope that 2024 will bring plenty of good Italian wine. My dad, when growing up, used to say to me “if you are going to get drunk, do it by drinking good wine, at least you won’t have headache the next morning”. My dad’s recommendation aside, less is better, and this applies to wine as well, drink less but drink better and more importantly enjoy your wine, sip it. Maybe this living cost crisis will help all of us to enjoy and appreciate more, whether wine or clothes.

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Addio 2023 and benvenuto 2024

December 30, 2023    Tags: View Comments (0)

2023 has been a significant year for us, first and foremost because we celebrated our 20th birthday. I still can’t believe, 20 years have flown by, and what a rollercoaster has been, plenty of ups, with very highs, and downs, including very lows. But 2023 has also been one of our busiest year ever thanks to all of you who trusted us for their “Italian” shopping, and on that positive note, I want to bid farewell to 2023 and welcome the 2024, hoping that it will bring all of us joy and health and success, whatever it means

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Did you know that “Prosecco gets its sparkles from injecting CO2”?

October 28, 2023    Tags: View Comments (0)

I did not and it is not the case, prosecco is made following the Charmat or Martinotti method, where the second fermentation takes place in the tank, however, this was what I read on an award winning wine merchant website

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Plenty more wines, including our first natural wines

October 14, 2023    Tags: View Comments (0)

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

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Paring wine and pizza

September 09, 2023    Tags: View Comments (0)

For Italians, pizza and wine are both in our DNA but until recently, the two were rarely served together, pizza would go with beer and everything else with wine. As time has evolved, and pizza has become "gourmet", pizza and wine is now an accepted and refined pairing but it has also become a challenging and fun exercise due to the myriad of toppings that can be used for a pizza and the thousands of wines. Not only there is a wine for every palate, but there is also a pizza, lets combine the two together for a delicious journey through the Italian's flavours

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The 2023 harvesting has begun and it will be another difficult one

September 05, 2023    Tags: View Comments (0)

The 2023 harvesting will be remembered, yet again, from winemakers all over the Italy for its many challenges, due to the unpredictable weather patterns. From the devastating floods in Emilia-Romagna to the scorching temperatures in Sicily, to the lack of dry days during the spring that has caused the Peronospora to attack the vines. The 2023 grape growing season is one that has been marked by extremes across the country, from north to south, with no exception. Climate change is now widely acknowledged as the cause of these extremes and unpredictable weather events. Italian winemakers have not had a “normal” harvesting for several years now and each harvesting brings more and new challenges

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