The new beginning, modern era, those of Italian wine today: the message from “Wine Spectator”

“I believe that Italian wine could still grow even more in many ways. What I see and what I think is that a lot of regions started again to plant the vine clones 30 years ago and now we start to see the results and we will also see the qualitative improvement in the next 20-30 years. We are at a kind of “new beginning”. As in the sixties and seventies the Supertuscans were the engine of growth, in recent times we have seen important growth in many parts of Italy such as Campania, Puglia, Sicily: we are in a sort of modern era of Italian wine “. Words by Bruce Sanderson, senior editor and tasting expert of Italian wines for “Wine Spectator”, today, to WineNews, from “Opera Wine”, the great tasting signed by Veronafiere, as a preview of Vinitaly 2022 (10-13 April), which 130 great wine brands from the Belpaese put in the spotlight, to tell the qualitative kaleidoscope of tricolor enology, which is one of the “101 Reasons We Love Italy”, or the 101 reasons why Americans love Italy.
“We have chosen 101 - added Alison Napjus, senior editor & tasting director “Wine Spectator”- but there could be thousands of reasons why Americans love Italian wine and your country. We can talk about autochthonous vines, about food pairing, but also about experiences that revolve around wine, such as those I experienced in Florence, for example, perhaps buying handmade shoes or leather goods, or hotel experiences in beautiful places. Wine is the catalyst of the Italian lifestyle, it is part of the daily life, of the Italian way of life, and the best thing about your lifestyle is to drink a glass of Italian wine every day”.
Italian wine, however, means “Italian wines”, and if Barolo, Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti Classico and Amarone della Valpolicella are the great classics of Italian wine (and the most represented territories at “Opera Wine 2022”). But there is much more. “The Verdicchio delle Marche has great potential, as well as the whites of Campania, which are having great success on the market, while among the reds I say Sagrantino di Montefalco, and then again the reds of Sicily, not only Etna, but also Frappato, Nero d’Avola and so on”. “But also the ancient varieties, such as Aglianico in Campania, and Arneis in Piedmont, which is experiencing a renaissance, but there are hundreds of them still to be discovered”, added Jeffery Lindenmuth, new executive editor of “Wine Spectator”, who added: “Americans love Italian wine very much because they love Italian food, which is definitely “food-friendly”.
But Lindenmuth also spoke about the future of the magazine: “We are Wine Spectators, we have built the image on integrity, and you don’t last 50 years if you don’t have integrity. We will certainly continue like this, we will continue to serve readers, creating increasingly dynamic content, along with beautiful visual content. Clearly, the characteristic of a printed magazine must be that of having good visual content, while in the online version, on www.winespectator.com, we will focus on immediate news, breaking news, exclusives”. And on the story, which will obviously have also the great Italian wine as its object.