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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, where you can discover the origin and the grapes making your favourite Italian wine. I also wrote a post on the Italian wine appellation system explaining and demystifying the Italian wine classification and what it really means for Italian wine lover and wine drinkers in general.
Or you can check our 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 my posts and watching my videos
Andrea
Having been raised and played amongst vines and olive trees, I never fully appreciated how fortunate I was. At home, on our table, not only the food was homemade, but there was always plenty of olive oil and wine, and whilst for the wine I had to wait before I was allowed to drink it, olive oil has been part of my diet from day one. I would make trips to my grandparents only to eat fire roasted bread with olive oil: three, four, five slices. No sweet, no chocolate, I was happy with bread and oil, still am. Even now, I eat plenty of it, I make my own bread and I always have a glass of red wine with it. Not only I love it, but it bring back wonderful memories of my childhood. Good wine brings back memories too.
Soave is not the first Italian wine that has divided its appellation into crus, the same was done a few years ago by the Barolo consortium with mixed results, but Barolo is a wine with a different history and price compared to Soave. Will the new system work and help the wine to remedy to some of the mistakes done in the past? Will wine drinkers bother to learn about the different crus and pay a premium? It will take a few vintages before we can answer these questions.
I never bought a bottle of wine because of its points or awards, not even when I first started drinking wine, I was never attracted to the shiny medal, always liked to discover hidden treasures, it makes you proud, and I took with me this philosophy when I started Italyabroad.com. Italyabroad.com is all about importing wines, initially I then we as the team grew, liked and never because of their points or awards
In a time where meeting people has become “dangerous” and we are being told to stay in our bubble, Christmas hampers and virtual wine tastings are seen as the safe option. Corporate Christmas hampers are the perfect solution for big companies, for companies with dozens or hundreds of employees. Our virtual wine tasting events on the other side, are more suited for smaller groups or companies
A few days ago, I was choosing the theme and selecting the wines for a corporate wine tasting event we will be hosting in Leeds and suggested organic and vegan wines.The organizer, after a few seconds, asked me why vegan wines, were not all wines vegan since they are made with grapes?
We always believed that the best Italian Pinot Grigio come from either Trentino Alto Adige or Friuli Venezia Giulia, these are the regions for wines with dept, structure, elegance. Pinot grigio grapes grown at altitude give the wine a lot more. We really love both wines and we apologies if it took us that long to finally add a Pinot Grigio, but we hope that now that we have, you will agree with us that the wait was worth it
Wine and chocolate was, until recently, thought to be an almost impossible match. Chocolate, due to its characteristics - from the bitterness of the cocoa to the fattiness of the cocoa butter -was often paired with spirits and for Italians, the perfect match was grappa on all its versions. From single origin to single estate, an 80% dark chocolate flavours change depending on where the cocoa comes from, to different percentages, chocolate has become much more than just dark or milk or white and because of that, wine and chocolate not only are now paired, but it is an exciting exercise for all wine and chocolate lovers.
It was a very interesting conversation but it made me wonder how far wine makers are actually going in the hope their wines will sell - sometime at crazy prices - in a very crowded market already full of good and great wines, where the easiest option to stand out seems to be one that has nothing to do with the wine itself.
In my over 20 years of hosting wine events, when explaining the wine tasting process, the first step - the colour of the wine - is always the one that seems to be underestimated. And not just from wine novices or people who attend the event as an evening out. Despite being still very underestimate by wine drinkers, understanding the colour is a very important step toward a better enjoyment of the wine.
There are plenty of charts available showing how much wine is actually in a bottle based on its retail prices, showing us that in a £5.00 bottle there is actually only £0.36 of wine or £2.76 in a £10 bottle and telling us to think twice before buying a £5.00 bottle. Charts that take into account the different price components with the emphasis on excise duty and VAT – they account for the majority of their cost on lower priced wines – but to fairly determine the amount of wine inside a bottle, I believe we need to consider where the wine comes from
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