Wine, brand and quality: the most awarded wineries (with at least one wine) by Italian wine guides

The producer’s brand, in an increasingly competitive and crowded world of wine labels, is increasingly important. And according to all the studies and those who live the market every day, it is precisely to the most established brands that offer the most security to consumers that we turn, in times of great uncertainty such as the ones we are experiencing. And if finding a single wine that gets everyone to agree is increasingly complex, among the many important brands of Italian wine, there are some that, in addition to consumers, also get Italian critics to agree. As emerges from a comparison of the 9 publications, including guides and rankings, with “national coverage”, 2025 edition, released in the final weeks of 2024, which include the “classics” and with greater “seniority of service” (“Vini d’Italia Gambero Rosso”, with its “Tre Bicchieri”, “I Vini di Veronelli” with the “Tre Stelle Oro, “Bibenda” of the Italian Sommelier Foundation, with the “Cinque Grappoli”, Daniele Cernilli’s “Guida Essenziale ai Vini d’Italia”, with the “tre faccini”, “Vitae” of the Ais Sommeliers, with the “Gemma”, which from this edition symbolizes all those labels that deserve a score of 94 or more points out of 100, and again “Vite, vigne, vini d’Italia Slow Wine” by Slow Food, with “Top Wine” and “Vino Slow”), to which, to complete the picture, three publications peculiar character were placed side by side in the comparison: the guide “Vinibuoni d’Italia” - Tci (which, by its editorial choice, takes into consideration mainly wines from native grape varieties, with the wines of its “Top 300”), “The Best 100 Wines and Winemakers of Italy” of the “Corriere della Sera” (a guide edited by the deputy editor of the newspaper of via Solferino Luciano Ferraro and James Suckling, which condenses the best of the Italian wine scene into a very narrow selection of wines) and “The Guide to 1000 Wines of Italy” by “L’Espresso”, edited by Luca Gardini (also with a very selective list of award-winning wines, of which we have taken into consideration the “I 110 cum laude”, while not included in the cross-reference is Luca Maroni’s Yearbook of the Best Italian Wines, which follows his very peculiar concept of “wine-fruit” evaluation). Thus, looking only at the maximum awards obtained by the wines in each guide, it emerges that it is the Tuscan Fattoria di Petrolo, led by Luca Sanjust, and among the references of the small Val d’Arno di Sopra appellation, the only winery with at least one wine awarded by the 9 selected guides and publications. But beyond this peculiar and virtuous exception, reading the various lists confirms a hard core of wineries capable of producing quality with consistency over time and product variety. With 8 out of 9 guides there are pearls of Italian wine such as the Trentino Tenuta San Leonardo of the Guerrieri Gonzaga family, the Tuscan Tenuta San Guido of the Incisa della Rocchetta family, cradle of the Sassicaia myth, and the Sicilian Tasca d’Almerita, led by Alberto Tasca and among the wineries that have made wine Sicily great in the world, passing through Ca’ del Bosco, among the jewels of Franciacorta, led by Maurizio Zanella, the Alto Adige-based Cantina Terlano, an icon of the area and the winery that is the symbol of white wines for long aging.
Still, then, combing together awards from 7 out of 9 other outstanding wineries, such as Tuscany’s Argiano, Tenuta Sette Ponti, Capezzana, Boscarelli, Isole e Olena, Ricasoli, Poggio di Sotto and Il Borro; Piedmont’s Coppo, Pio Cesare, Vietti and Gaja; Veneto’s Bertani, Brigaldara and Pieropan; Sicily’s Donnafugata and Girolamo Russo; Alto Adige’s Elena Walch and Cantina Girlan; Umbria’s Antonelli, Trentino’s Ferrari-Lunelli, Sardinia’s Argiolas, Puglia’s Gianfranco Fino, Marche’s Oasi degli Angeli, Abruzzo’s Torre dei Beati, Friuli’s Jermann and Campania’s Marisa Cuomo. While agreeing on the albeit considerable number of 6 out of 9 publications, there are still such griffes as the Tuscan Il Marroneto, Antinori, Tolaini, Badia a Coltibuono, Biondi Santi, Castellare di Castellina, Castello di Volpaia, Piaggia, Salvioni, Fontodi, Rocca delle Macìe, Casanova di Neri, Castello di Fonterutoli, Ornellaia, Brancaia, Castello di Ama, Giodo, Grattamacco, Altesino and Fuligni; the Piedmontese Bruno Giacosa, Sottimano, Giovanni Rosso, Giacomo Fenocchio, G. B. Burlotto, E. Pira-Chiara Boschis, Cavallotto, Vajra, Braida, Cisa Asinari-Marchesi di Gresy, Domenico Clerico, Paitin and Giuseppe Rinaldi; the Sicilian Palari, Pietradolce and Passopisciario; the Abruzzese Valentini, Nicodemi, La Valentina and Valle Reale; the Venetian Inama, Allegrini and Speri; Umbria’s Caprai, Leonardo Bussoletti and Palazzone; Campania’s Fontanavecchia, I Favati and La Sibilla; Lombardy’s Mosnel and Castello Bonomi; Puglia’s Polvanera, Marche’s Umani Ronchi, Friuli’s Livio Felluga, Lazio's Famiglia Cotarella, Alto Adige’s Tiefenbrunner and Lucania’s Cantine del Notaio.
A good number of wineries (net of some unlikely but possible oversight in the comparison, made by now of hundreds and hundreds of labels to be verified), therefore, those capable of agreeing with the most important, authoritative and listened to voices of Italian critics. And which, not surprisingly, are also the most recurrent names whose references can be found on the wine lists of restaurants, wine bars and wine shops throughout Italy.