Europe Travel Guide | Comprehensive Information Blog

For a wine taster’s palate, there is no better destination than the fine taste of Italy’s excellent vineyards. Four major regions come to mind, Chianti, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Veneto, any one a rich experience to add to your travel plans when visiting this beautiful country.

Chianti
Chianti is a wine producing region in Italy world famous for its dry, red wines. Chianti is located in the center of Tuscany, with Florence on the northern end and Siena marking the southern boundary. The region is divided into smaller areas with the Chianti Classico area being the center and the most prestigious wine.
The main grape used in Chianti is the Sangiovese variety, but it may be blended with other grapes, including Trebbiano. The Sangiovese grape is a finicky variety, not ripening uniformly or easily, and wines made from this grape must be carefully formulated by experienced winemakers to produce the distinct and full bodied Chianti wines.
Wines from this area once brought up visions of a peasant village, with red checkered tablecloths and candles perched in straw wrapped bottles, dripping with wax down the sides. Due to a changing in the wine laws of Italy in the early 1990’s, the style and quality of Chianti has improved tremendously in the last ten years.

Piedmont
“Piemont”, meaning “at the hoot of the mountain” describes the landscape where the vines are grown. This area produces more than 40 officially recognized wines known worldwide, the greater majority made on small family-run estates.
The Nebbiolo is the main grape grown in this Northern Italian region, resulting in rich, hearty reds like Barbaresco, Gattinara and Barolo. Here, also, is where their sparkling white, Asti Spumante, was developed from the Muscato grape, by an Italian vintner who trained in France.
Picturesque landscape, beautiful peoples and a wide variety of wine tasting from light sweet dessert wines to delight and excite the palate make the Piedmont region a must on your tour Italiano.





Tuscany
Situated in Central Italy, the region is crossed by the Apennines mountain range. Rolling hills, and warm, soft sun in this area produce red and white wines in a wide variety. In its heart, lies the Chianti region, Again, as in the Chianti region, the main grape used here in the red wines is the Sangiovese. In the past, these grapes were blended with others. Today, the emphasis is place strongly on the Sangiovese, and more of the best Tuscan wines use very little or no other grape varieties to produce these fine wines. Some of the top wines of the region are Montalcino’s Brunello, Chianti’s Sangioveto and Montepulciano’s Prugnolo Gentile

Veneto
Romantic gondola rides in the city of Venice’s watery canals, visions brought to mind when one mentions this region. But the area becomes even more interesting if you love Italian wines. With the most types of wines produced in any region in Italy, the Veneto reaches from the Adriatic sea in the east to Lake Garda in the west.
Vintners grow many varieties of grapes native to other areas of the world, but the grapes bred to this region produce the best wines. White varieties include Garganega, Prosecco, Trebbiano, and Vespaiola. Reds include Corvina, Molinara, Rondinella, and Negrara. There are 80 grape varieties that are authorized in Veneto.
Wines made here are some of the best selling wines throughout the world.

And there you have it, a brief overview of the four major regions of wines in Italy, and perhaps more than a whetting of your appetite to try some of these while visiting the country.