Rosso - Italian Wines 2015

As timely as each of our other 28 vintages, the season has once again come round to take stock as we offer you the new edition of Italian Wines. What you are perusing is the most comprehensive and authoritative guide available for the complex world of Italian wines. Much has happened since that first edition in 1988, and there have been a great many changes. The early Italian wine revival was followed by numerous stages of technical development and innovation, and today the focus has shifted to the vital role of the vineyard itself, to sustainability, and a general approach to oenology and viticulture that is less dependent on technology and more attuned to nature. Traditional growing areas and cultivars are really stealing the limelight now, yielding in the current edition alone a dazzling array of no less than 423 Tre Bicchieri winners, courtesy of some excellent vintages that include 2010 in Piedmont, and 2010 and 2011 in Tuscany. Our team of 60 experienced wine-tasters spent months travelling around vineyards and wine cellars, sampling approximately 45,000 items sent from every region in rigorously conducted blind tastings with covered bottles, and samples uniformly arranged by area, type and year. The top wines from each area then went on to the Citt del Gusto in Rome for the tasting finals. Here we have the crme de la crme of Italian winegrowing, approximately 1,500 labels, each marked with two colours of glasses. The entire editorial staff and the delegates from each of the participating territories attended the tasting finals. In addition, this year we were honoured to welcome Barbara Philip, MW of the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch, who contributed her expertise to the tasting panel and whose presence was testimony to the international scope of Italian Wines, which for years has been translated into German, English and Chinese, with a Japanese version being added last year, making it the worlds premier publication dedicated to Italian wines. Thanks to a reputation built up over almost three decades in the field, each year Gambero Rosso organizes a series of over 30 highly successful international events on every continent, the scale of whose support for Italian wine exports is unrivalled. They also offer sector operators and wine-lovers an invaluable opportunity to meet and make connections, as well as providing leading wineries targeting international markets with an unparalleled showcase. The Guide is appreciated globally for its simple and easy-to-understand style, from the outset seeking to be accessible equally to trade experts and simple wine buffs, epitomized by the now-classic points system which everyone knows: Un Bicchiere for good wines we recommend; Due Bicchieri for the best expressions of a territory, and Tre Bicchieri, the internationally recognized trademark, for wines of excellence. A full description of each winery accompanies the points, from prices to production volume, from the extent of the vineyards in hectares to the type of winegrowing, details about the growers history and style, and the territory where they operate. This has enabled us to select 2,402 high-level wineries ranging from the boutique scale to the international producer, as well as 20,000 wines representing the best of Italian labels, and which are worth tasting in order to become better acquainted with a designation and its vines. Our approach remains as unbiased and as open-minded as possible. This is a quintessentially impartial guide and it includes biodynamic wines, orange wines, wines produced using the latest techniques, as well as the great whites and reds that are the result of our 2,000 years of winemaking history. In these pages we give awards to the great Brunello di Montalcino 2009, the Barolo of 2010, the Chianti Classico Gran Selezione from the same year, and the various designations of Lambrusco, not to mention little-known treasures from small-scale wineries and DOCs, from Valle dAosta and Liguria to Basilicata and beyond. The special awards we assign each year capture this spirit, and so in this edition we have a superb Barolo Riserva 2007, Viettis Villero, in first place alongside White of the Year, Valle Reales Trebbiano dAbruzzo Vigne di Capestrano 2012; an excellent Brut Nature di Monsupello as Sparkler of the Year; then the most classic of classic sweet wines, Vin Santo di Carmignano Riserva 2007 from Capezzana. Winery of the Year goes to Sette Ponti and Antonio Moretti, owner also of the award-winning Bolgheri Ormas, and Feudo Maccari in Sicily. The Best Up-and-Coming Winery is in Friuli and is Roberto Snidarcigs Tiare, whereas Best Value for Money is an excellent Custoza Superiore Ca del Magro 2012 from the Bonomo familys Monte del Fr. Grower of the Year is Giuseppe Gabbas from Nuoro, and the Sustainable Viticulture Award goes to Barone Pizzini of Franciacorta. Sustainability has been a priority topic for us for some time, and as from the next edition of the Guide, we will be presenting our latest findings from the Forum Italiano per la Sostenibilit del Vino, which we contributed to creating. To conclude, we also list the 80 Tre Bicchieri Verdi awards that went to organic or biodynamic wineries, as well as over 100 award-winning wines available at your local stores for under 15 euros.