Jeroboams Education is a new series on our blog providing you with the lowdown on the most iconic wine producing regions of the world. Led by our super buying team, Peter Mitchell MW and Maggie MacPherson will introduce you to the key facts and a little history of all the regions you recognise but perhaps don’t know too well. To help really further your education, why not drink along? Browse our North-East Italy selection.

Introduction

The Northeast of Italy covers six provinces and produces well over 40% of all Italian wine, with the majority of this (70%) being white. Veneto is by some way the biggest producer in the country, with the volumes coming from mass market behemoths Pinot Grigio and Prosecco. The broad Po valley and the coastal littoral round to Trieste are low lying and relatively flat and the bulk of the wine comes from this land, although nearly all the quality wine comes from hillsides further towards the Alps and from the mountainous Alto-Adige region in the Südtirol.

It can be a confusing area as many DOC’s overlap one another and a couple – Prosecco and delle Venezie – are absolutely vast and cross regional boundaries, however beyond the oceans of bulk wine, this is an area that produces a diverse range of world class whites and a handful of great reds and sparkling wines.

History

Like much of Italy, the fertile Po valley has a vinous history reaching back to at least the 3rd century BC and Virgil wrote of Emperor Augustus’ love of the wines of Verona early in the first century, whilst Augustus’ wife, Livia, ascribed her longevity to the wines of Friuli. By the middle ages, Venice had become one of the key trading cities of the world and a new merchant class had risen in the cities of the area. Wine had gone from being just a part of the diet to something that was (at least for the lucky few) an aspirational luxury good.  By the 14th century, consumption was huge (an average of at least a bottle per day for every man woman and child is recorded in Florence in 1338) and wine had become the most profitable cash crop in Italy. Despite this heroic consumption, there was still an excess of production which from the north-east was exported to Switzerland, Germany and through Venice to Constantinople and the Levant. Throughout this period, Italy was a turbulent collection of city states constantly at war, but by the 16th century northern Italy was under the control of Austria and relative peace reigned. Grape varieties we see now that were highly regarded at this time include Garganega (modern Soave) and Sangiovese di Romagna from near Bologna. The 17th and 18th centuries were periods of economic decline in Italy and her wine industry was left behind.  Wine was all sold in bulk (bottles had become the norm for quality wine in France by now) and contemporary records are not flattering about the wines, most of which were of poor quality.  It is not until well after unification, in the late 19th century, that bottling of Italian wine began (albeit in a limited way) and some wines of quality began being made, but for the north-east, the story of quality wine only really begins after the Second World War, when the country as a whole underwent a major economic boom. This was the first part of Italy to use modern techniques (such as temperature control) in winemaking and International varieties are far more common here than elsewhere.  In this sense, many of the best wines of this part of Italy are not full of heritage and have always been more outward looking and this has helped the region to build up such an impressive export market.  The explosive growth of Pinot Grigio and Prosecco has meant Vento production has near doubled in the last 30 years, but this has also led to a worryingly large amount of wine being labelled DOC that is not worthy of the title. Time will tell if greed comes back to bite.

The Regions of North-East Italy