THE ITALY WINE REGIONS

Piemonte

Photo source: Winekeller

Select a wine region in Italy for your next wine tour:

What are the most famous wine regions in Italy?

Italy has the richest variety of individual wine styles, local climates and local (indigenous) grape varieties of all of the world’s wine producing countries - and only France - sometimes - produces more wine than Italy. The geography is incredibly well-suited to making good wine, with the amount of daily sunshine and temperate climate and the mountains and gentle slopes running down the spine of the country.

Italy produces some amazing and distinctive wines – and these of course, play an essential supporting role at the Italian table! The best wine for Italian food is Italian wine and who doesn’t love Italian wine and food?

Italy's wine country is so varied and so vast, with hardly any part of the country not classified as wine country, it is practical to group the wine regions across 4 geographic areas:

Northwest Italy: Includes the regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Aosta Valley. The cooler climates produce mean more elegant, aromatic, and earthy red wines and in white wines with lots of fresh acidity.

Northeast Italy: Includes the regions of Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The cooler climates here are influenced by the Adriatic Sea. Fruity but elegant red wines and great white wines, including Soave, made from the Garganega grape and world-famous Prosecco.

Central: Includes Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Lazio, and Abruzzo. The Mediterranean climate here produces superb red wines from grape varieties including Sangiovese and Montepulciano.

Southern and Islands: Includes Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, Calabria, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. This is Italy’s warmest area - the red wines are full and fruity and the white wines are full-bodied.

Map of wine regions in Italy

Italian wines

The terrain in Italy is varied, explaining the sheer number of grape varieties, with volcanic soils, limestone and gravelly clay.

It can be difficult to really understand Italian wine, especially considering the large number of local grape varieties (500+) and that historically there has been little order and structure around how wine is qualified.

Today Italy is best known for its indigenous, native grape varieties, some better known around the world than others.

Italian wine classifications

In Italy there are 4 different categories of wine - as follows in ascending order of quality:

VdT wine - ‘Vino da Tavala’ (table wine - wine with no specific indication of origin)
IGT wine - ‘Indicazione Geografica Tipica’ (wine with a Typical Geographic Indication)
DOC wine - ‘Denominazione di Origine Controllata’ (or controlled designation of origin - there are currently over 330 Italian DOC regions)
DOCG wine - Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (the strictest rules apply for these regions - there are currently just over 75 DOCGs in Italy)

Italian red wine

Historically, Italy has built its reputation as a top quality wine-producing country on the basis of its superb red wines, including the Sangiovese grape (Chianti wines), Montepulciano (Abruzzo) and especially, Nebbiolo. The Nebbiolo grape variety produces full-bodied red wines, known for their pale colour but high, gripping acidity and tannins, most famously found in the red wines of Piedmont in northwest Italy, Barolo and Barbaresco.

Italian white wine

There was a time when all of Italy’s best wines were red, however this is no longer the case. Today Italy produces some excellent white wines from both native and international grape varieties. The indigenous grapes include Trebbiano, Verdicchio and Vermentino, as well as Garganega, the grape of Soave wines.

Of course, Italy is well known for its Pinot Grigio wines, but this isn’t a native grape! Pinot Grigio is based on the French grape Pinot gris and its Italian origins are in northeast Italy, in the regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli, Trentino and Alto Adige.

Italian sparkling wine

There are several major types of Italian sparkling wines, including Prosecco, Lambrusco, Franciacorta and Asti Spumante. The first 3 of these are all produced in the northeast of Italy, the most famous arguably being Prosecco, the most popular of Italian sparkling wines, from Venice in Veneto. The grape variety from which Prosecco is made is ‘Glera’ and this easy-drinking wine is produced in vast tanks, not in the bottle as for Champagne.

Lombardy, Italy

The top 10 Italian DOCs - ‘quality wine’ regions

A huge amount of good quality table wine is produced in Italy, as well as cooking wine, but here we will just consider Italy’s ‘quality’ – or DOC and DOCG wines.

Here are the top 10 DOC wine regions in terms of production:

Veneto - known for its red Valpolicella wines and the rich white wine, Soave
Tuscany - home to the Chianti region, the most famous region for the Sangiovese grape - also Italy’s most produced white grape, Trebbiano and a sweet wine called Vin Santo
Piedmont - besides the great Nebbiolo wines of Barolo, the region is also home to the red Dolcetto grape and Moscato d’Asti
Emilia-Romagna - home to the well-known sparkling Lambrusco, including outstanding off-dry to totally dry examples
Lombardy - known for its Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir) red wines as well as sparkling wines
Umbria - known for great value Sangiovese (red) and Orvieto wines (white)
Abruzzo - Montepulciano is the primary red grape here and the wines are called Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Trentino Alto-Adige - situated next to the Alps, makes fabulous white wines from Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco, Gewürztraminer, and Müller-Thurgau. In Trento, they produce a sparkling wine made with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that easily rivals the best Champagne
Friuli-Venezia Giulia - known for several unique and more intensely flavoured styles of Pinot Grigio
Marche - known for refreshing and aromatic Verdicchio white wines.

Tuscany, Italy

Visiting the Italian wine regions

Fantastic wines can be found in all of the Italian regions and this combined with the amazing food, scenery and culture here, makes Italy a dream destination for wine enthusiasts and wine lovers alike! This is the land of ‘la dolce vita’ after all and Italy is an absolute must-visit, must-experience wine tourism destination!

There is something different to experience in each of the 20 or so different DOC wine regions across northwest, northeast, central and southern Italy, so you need to plan on making several trips here!

Regions like Puglia and Sicily may not be quite in the top 10 list of DOC wine production regions, but they are incredibly popular as tourist destinations and that means they are also top Italian wine and food hot-spots! Note, we shall cover the amazing Italian food in each regional page, there’s just to much to cover here!

For the best wine tours in Italy, choose from exploring Piedmont - the land of Barolo, Barbaresco and truffles in the northwest, explore the wines and sights around Venice in the northeast, discover the breathtaking scenery, mediaeval cities, wines and vineyards of beautiful Tuscany in the centre of Italy or the sun-drenched islands of Sicily and Sardinia and the olive groves and trulli houses of fabulous Puglia, in the south.

Get some inspiration here about visiting Italy and start planning your Italian wine travel experience!

Italian wine words

Vino bianco - White wine

Vino rosso - Red wine
Vino rosato - Rosé wine
Secco - Dry
Dolce - Sweet
Spumante - Sparkling
Frizzante - Semi-sparkling

Riserva - Aged wine
Superiore - Longer aged wine
Tenuta - Single estate
Vendemmia - Vintage
Vigna/vigneto - Vineyard
Fattoria - Farm
Cantina - Cellar/Winery