Italian White Wines

Italy produces some excellent white wines from big oaked Chardonnays and hot weather grapes in Sicily, to crisp full flavoured Sauvignons and Pinot Grigios in the hills in the snowy north. There is a great variety of flavours and styles, something for every taste.

Italy also has some of the most famous and prestigious wineries in the world. For the whites these include La Scolca who are world famous for their quality Gavi – they even trade marked the term Gavi dei Gavi. And Santa Margherita of course who “invented Pinot Grigio”. Although their excellent Pinot Grigio from Valdadige is thankfully a world away from the plonk in the supermarkets that has damaged the reputation of Pinot Grigio as a wine.

There are plenty of natural winemakers in Italy too so organic or “bio” wine as it is known over there is flourishing. We have some great wines from La Selva, an organic family farm in Maremma, Tuscany. And one natural Vermentino from Sequerciani in the same region. Other than that we focus on northern Italy for full flavoured clean whites. The hotter climate whites from the south tend to be too full, too high in natural sugars for us which bind their free SO2 meaning more is required. This means they tend to have fairly high total SO2 which is a partial cause of the hangover. We prefer to steer clear of these wines and focus on lighter cleaner wines. We strongly recommend the wines from Livon and St Michael Eppan.