Northern Italy Wine PairingsItaly is the country of multiplicity and it’s hard to make generalizations. This is especially true when considering the food & wine pairings of the northern regions. From the borders by the Alps to the northern coastal areas on Ligurian and Adriatic seas, indeed, elevation, climate and landscapes can change radically, and can therefore determine a wide variety of different products.By and large, we can identify four iconic kinds of wine from Northern Italy.From west to east, with some interesting deviation, they are: Full bodied, long-living red wines Charmat-Martinotti method sparkling wine Mineral and elegant white winesPiedmont red winesBarolo is the name of a small hamlet by the small town of Alba in the (not so small, to the Italian parameters) province of Cuneo, but to wine lovers it is the symbol of great Italian red wines.It pairs greatly with recipes of the same territory, and namely braised and roasted meat - as in Piedmont they raise Fassona, one of the most renowned Italian beef breed for meat production - wild game and truffle-seasoned dishes.There is another great red wine from Northern Italy, but it comes from region Veneto. It’s Amarone della Valpolicella, from a small region to the west of Verona, where the land is also hilly and the climate is not too dry. It also pairs very well with rich meat dishes, as well as the local speciality: risotto all’Amarone, a risotto prepared with the same Amarone wine, as its name says.ProseccoYet, to almost everybody outside of Italy, Veneto is the region of Prosecco (and indeed it is).Although they also produce more complex, quality wine, the success of this easy-drinking Charmat-Martinotti method sparkling wine has overcome in popularity almost any other wine from Veneto.Italians have it as an “aperitivo” (they use to linger on drinking wines or light cocktails before dinner), and indeed Prosecco is often a wine that doesn’t require meditation. Yet, in recent years it is produced with increasingly care and there are some wine makers that do bottle in great Proseccos, that can be enjoyed throughout the meal.There isn’t an actual Italian pairing tradition for Prosecco, so let’s have it with sushi and sashimi: it seems they were waiting for one another.Friulano and FriendsOnce upon a time it was called Tocai and nobody messed it up with Tokaj from Hungary. Now that European Union decreed it must be called in another way, and the name Friulano has been chosen (indeed, it comes from Friuli), it seems that the world has lost memory of it.Yet, on the hills by the border to Slovenia they produce this elegant and aromatic white wine, whose scents resemble the ones of Sauvignon - and indeed this international variety is also successfully cultivated in the area, as well as some other white ones.Friulano matches perfectly with fish and seafood from Adriatic Sea.Central Italian Wine PairingsLazio, the region Rome lies in, has a long winemaking tradition and still produces some interesting, though less popular, wines.Umbria, the sole region in Central and Southern Italy that doesn’t lie upon the sea, and that indeed is the home of some excellent, backcountry food products like sausages and truffles from Norcia, is the home of Sagrantino, a full-bodied red wine with vigorous tannis and a typical mulberry aroma, that can age for years and that pairs greatly with rich wild game dishes from the local culinary tradition.But the fact is that when you say wine from Central Italy, you say wine from Tuscany.However, Tuscany doesn’t mean Super Tuscans only.Wines from Bolgheri that are not SassicaiaBolgheri Rosso (red) and Bolgheri Vermentino (white) are two typical wines from the small town of Bolgheri, a few miles from the Tyrrhenian coast, in the province of Livorno, where more famous Sassicaia is produced.Bolgheri Rosso is suggested to be tasted with roasted meat as it has a rich body and a distinctive winy scent.Wine from Siena that is not ChiantiIn the province of Siena they are famous for producing Chianti, another potent and long-living great Italian red wine, but San Gimignano is the home of a white wine you don’t expect: Vernaccia. It is a white wine from the heart of Italy and indeed it pairs better with earthy food than with coastal dishes: ribollita and other typical local soup are its natural companions.Outside of TuscanyIn Lazio they mainly produce white wines, among which Cannellino di Frascati and Frascati superiore are the most famous and refined - they both are classified DOCG. They are produced with a base of local variety of Malvasia and other local white varieties; the former has distinctive fruity notes while the latter is more mineral.Despite artichokes are the hardest food to be paired to wine par excellence, in Lazio they found the key to do it. These two white wines are also traditionally consumed with Carciofi alla romana (Roman-style artichokes, pan cooked in water and white wine with garlic, parsley, lesser calamint, salt and pepper) and Carciofi alla giudìa (Jewish-style artichokes, deep fried).The third DOCG wine from Lazio is a red one: Cesanese del Piglio, produced in the area of Frosinone.Most famous wine from Umbria is Sagrantino di Montefalco, from 100% Sagrantino grapes. It’s a full-flavoured red wine high in tannin, which can therefore easily age and still be vivid. It is traditionally consumed with gravy wild game and meat dishes or roasted lamb.Only a few know that it is also produced “passito”, and namely in a “straw” version, made from dried raisins, which is also a DOCG wine of region Umbria, and that is usually consumed with patisserie, but that matches greatly with local aged cheeses.The third DOCG wine from Umbria, on the other hand, is Torgiano rosso riserva; it’s more similar to Chianti (it’s mainly made of Sangiovese) and is paired with traditional wild game and meat dishes as well.Southern Italian Wine PairingsWhen we think about Southern Italy, we think about sunny coastal areas and people tanning from March to October. In fact, it does happen, but Southern Italy is also a mostly hilly, when not mountainous, area where temperatures can be pretty low, if compared to other at the same latitudes. This makes a great place to make wine of it.Wines from Southern Italy are often full-bodied, because of the full ripeness the grapes reach. To be honest (not to say stern), on the other hand they sometimes lack of complexity, because the soil is sometimes too fertile and the climate can be too gentle to rise great grapes. Nonetheless, Southern Italy is also the home of unfairly forgotten great winesSicily is the new TuscanyThe most interesting region of Southern Italy is - for what concerns wines - Sicily.Not only this astonishing island has both the climate and the soil to produce intriguing wines, but an increasing number of winemakers are devoting themselves to a high quality production, too.Most famous Sicilian wine is probably Marsala, a fortified wine produced by the small town with the same name on the western coast of Sicily. It is abundantly employ as an ingredient in cooking, and is drunk with patisserie.On the eastern part of the region, instead, they produce interesting red wines that can compete in complexity with the one produced in Tuscany and in Piedmont. Mount Etna is an active volcano (it sometimes erupts and destroys vineyards) on whose soils grapes grow rich in flavours. Etna rosso is a red wine that matches perfectly with dishes prepared with pork meat from the local breed of pigs bred on Nebrodi Mountains, as well as with local, tasty aged cheeses.Red from the blueAnother region that produces strong red wines even if its coast is 865 km long (and therefore would be expected to produce more white, “marine”, wines) is Apulia, from where the three “Castel del Monte" DOGCs come (Castel del Monte Nero di Troia riserva; Castel del Monte Rosso riserva; Castel del Monte Bombino Nero). Stewed meat dishes, especially lamb, are the pairing par excellance for them.Yet, Apulia is also the home of two sweet wines (Primitivo di Manduria dolce naturale DOGC and Aleatico di Puglia dolce naturale DOC) that are lovely when tasted with local traditional patisserie.Not only pizzaCampania is the region where pizza was born, but it’s not the only local food and it’s not the most representative of local products. Gastronomy of Campania employs abundant fish and seafood, and local wines go along: two out of four DOCG wines are white, fresh and fragrant, perfect to be be enjoyed with spaghetti alle vongole (pasta dressed with clams) or allo scoglio (with clams, mussels, shrimps and tomato sauce). We are talking about Fiano d’Avellino and Greco di Tufo.Falanghina is a DOC white wine from Campania which is also representative of local wine production and popular among locals when they gather at the table for dinner.
