Italy is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world and has overtaken France as the world's largest wine producer. Italian wine is exported around the world and is also extremely popular in Italy: Italians rank fifth on the world wine consumption list by volume with 42 litres per capita consumption. Grapes are grown in almost every region of the country and there are more than one million vineyards under cultivation.
Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in Italy before the Romans started their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques like barrel-making and bottling.
Read more about Italian Wine: History, Italian Appellation System, Geographical Characteristics, Italian Wine Regions, Italian Grape Varieties, Super Tuscans, Wine Guides, Vino Cotto
Famous quotes containing the words italian and/or wine:
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)
“But this is wine that’s all too strange and strong.”
—Frank Loesser (1910–1969)