There is a good wine columnist in the Tribune who has had a couple of articles on Italian wine terminology. Here are a few I've learned. Some of it seems complicated, like the IGT, DOC and DOCG. They apparently have strict standards. I also had no idea that Italian wines are the largest selling imported wines in the U.S.
Frizzante: Half the bubbles of a fully sparkling wine.
Asti: Wines labeled Asti can be either sweet or dry. The sweet includes the fully sparkling Asti or the frizzante moscato d'Asti. For the dry version, barbera d'Asti is the most widespread example.
Gallo Nero (black rooster): A producers group in the Chianti Classico region. While they do require producers in the consortium to submit samples of every vintage for quality assessment, producers aren't denied the Gallo Nero seal. It's Not a guarantee of high quality or a guard against low quality.
Ripasso: A process in which some Valpolicella wines are "re-fermented in casks containing the lees from a prior batch of amarone wine. Amarone is a big and expensive wine made by fermenting partially dried grapes. Ripasso wines can be excellent value and a way to enjoy a hearty, full-bodied wine for under $20 per bottle. Although many books indicate that the word ripasso cannot appear on the label, it often does.
Barrique: Although this is a French word, it was popularized by the Italians, particularly "super Tuscan" and Barolo producers who wanted to distinguish their wine style from traditional wines which were aged in large oak containers.
Rufina: A wine region known for its Chianti. It is a sub-region of the large Chianti region.
Tenuta, an estate that grows its own grapes and bottles the wine
Vendemmia or vintage, and vigna or vigneto, both meaning vineyard.
Indicazione geografica tipica (IGT): Wines that must be representative of their geographic region. There are 118 appellations listed on the Italian Trade Commission's Web site, italianmade.com.
denominazione di origine controllata (DOC), which controls not only the geographical area but types of grapes used, production standards and aging periods. The Italian Trade Commission lists 315 DOC zones, but that number is always changing.
denominazione di origine controllata e garantita (DOCG), which has the strictest rules of all. There are 35 DOCG appellations.
There are some individual wines listed on that first Web site, including with pronunciations. Now I just need to try more Italian wines. Pinot Grigio is about as far as I go.
Trockenbeerenauslese: This isn't an Italian word for wine; it's a German word, meaning a very concentrated and sweet wine made form over-ripe grapes left on the vine until nearly dried out. Only the Germans would come up with one word for that!
In German it's called Prädikat Trockenbeerenauslese (link), and in English Trockenbeerenauslese or TBA (link). It's not just the drying on the vine process that's involved, there's also a fungus: "Trockenbeerenauslese wines [...] are made from individually selected grapes affected by noble rot, i.e. botrytized grapes." The term Prädikat, as in Prädikatwein, means 'rating' in this special sense (link). In grammar, it means 'predicate'.
As for the reason that a German term might show up in a list of Italian wine terminology: there are some areas of NE Italy where German is an official minority language. In Italian it's called Trentino-Alto Adige and in German Trentino-Südtirol (link. They make some good wines there (e.g., link).
This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,
This thread brought back a lovely decades-old memory. The summer after college, my travels included visiting the parents of a stateside German friend. They were diplomats from Bonn & well-off; I vaguely remember an indoor pool in an arty-modern home, perched like an eyrie over the city. It was a cool June day. After a sumptuous meal, we retired to a glassed-in sunken living-room with a fire in the grate, and our cordial hosts poured Prädikat Trockenbeerenauslese , explaining the specialty grape harvesting methods slowly for our fledgling German.
Danken sie für die erinnerungen!
(sorry for that flawed Deutsch-- still fledgling
Posts: 775 | Location: As they say at 101.5FM: Not New York... Not Philadelphia... PROUD TO BE NEW JERSEY!
