(English) Ten Great Italian Wines You Should Not Miss out on in 2024

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Italy has always made a huge volume of wine, some outstanding, some frankly very poor. But like no other place in the world, Italy offers countless amazing wines that cost very little in relation to how good they are, something that has always been one of the country’s strong suits in wine. Clearly, the problem is navigating through the oceans of mediocrity on sale. In this article, Ian D’Agata tells us about some amazing, thoroughly delicious wines that don’t cost an arm and a leg; for added interest, a few more expensive and age-worthy wines are included too, but even these are reasonably priced compared to some other wines made in the same denominations. Enjoy!

I have ben organizing and co-organizing wine shows, wine conferences and masterclasses all over the world for the better part of thirty years. It is a fun learning experience, one that never gets old, because the opportunities to make new friends and learn more about wine are virtually endless. Over the years I have worked with the Merano Wine festival and Vinitaly, created my own events with Collisioni in Barolo, and have helped set up tastings all over the world for other entities. It’s been a long fun journey, culminating the last two years with my wine show in Shanghai, the city where I live now. Bringing great wines, often made from little-known grape varieties and even less-well known producers had always been source of happiness for me. It doesn’t even have to be unknown native grapes: not at all. Back at the end of the 2000s, I co-organized with the Merano Wine Festival two marvelous editions of the Roma Vino Excellence festival. In the first edition, the centerpiece was not just the wine salon featuring some of Italy’s best wineries, but especially the fantastic conference on and tasting of Cabernet Franc, with speakers of the caliber of Kees van Leeuwen of Château Cheval Blanc, Jean-Claude Berrouet of Petrus, Delia Viader of Viader in California and many more luminaries of that ilk speaking on the subject of Cabernet Franc and its different expressions all over the world. It was such a memorable, one of a kind and successful conference that even France’s largest national daily newspaper actually picked the news up, devoting a whole page to the event (definitely one of the feathers in my cap of a lifetime devoted to wine). In the second edition of the festival, it was conferences on Riesling, with invited speakers from Alsace, Germany, Italy and Canada, among others that stole the show. So it doesn’t have to be about obscure grapes and wines, for culture and wine know no boundaries.

Italy is a blessed country from the perspective of terroir: simply put, grapevines grow well there, and Italians and people who lived there long before Italy ever became a reality have been making wine for millennia. Often very good, even outstanding wines. In the most recent show I helped set up about great Italian wines and wineries, I tasted a large number of truly great, delicious and fun wines. And so, the following is a list of can’t miss wines that you and all your friends will no doubt enjoy greatly this summer, fall and winter. And the even better news is that I tasted a whole lot more wines that are deserving of your attention. Stay tuned, for I’ll be writing about many other such wines soon. Cheers!

The wines in this tasting report

Barone Pizzini 2019 Franciacorta Rosé Edizione         94

Pink bubblies don’t get much easier and fun to drink than this. Pale pink with a steady stream of small bubbles. Perfumed aromas of redcurrant, violet, rosehips and orange peel on the inviting nose. Then just as inviting flavours of small red fruit, lemon and delicate spices that linger nicely on the long lively but suave mouthfeel. A wine of impeccable balance, this will appeal to those who prefer their bubblies on the softer, more mellow side but that still have plenty of lift and freshness. Knockout sparkling wine for the money (this is not a prestige cuvée bottling), this gives many a Champagne a run for their money. Drinking window: 2024-2030.

Caprili 2016 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva Ad Alberto      95+

Deep red. Austere but elegant and still very youthful on the nose and in the mouth, with aromas and flavours of red cherry, musk, truffles, tobacco, minerals and dry spices. Deep, layered and precise, this brooding wine is all about power and grace, a neat combination that makes this a candidate for further aging in the knowledge it will develop brilliantly. A marvelous year in Montalcino, and from one of the denomination’s real up and coming stars, this 2016 Riserva Ad Armando is a very promising wine. Drinking window: 2026-2044.

Casale del Giglio 2021 Bellone Lazio Anthium             92

Bellone is one of Italy’s least-known and yet best native white wine grapes of Italy, it has the capacity, rare in most wine grapes save for Riesling and only a few others, to give both classically dry and sweet wines of world-class quality. Factor in that it also has high enough acidity that you can make sparkling wines with it and you begin to realize this wine grape is a gem. Long grown in the countryside of Lazio surrounding Rome and nearby towns such as Cori, Bellone is making a timid comeback but deserves better. That a forward-thinking, successful winery like Casale del Giglio believed enough in the variety to want to start making a wine with it (when it previously never used to as it is located outside of the historical Bellone production area) is a clearcut sign of the confidence the grape and its wines ow inspires. Casale del Giglio is an amazingly successful winery that produces some of Italy’s best value wines, all of which clearly showcase the grape variety they are made with and offer fantastic drinking without costing an arm and a leg.

Deep straw yellow with some gold. Ripe, broad aromas and flavours offer apricot, apple, pear, dried herbs and a pleasantly chewy rustic touch. Full-bodied but light on its feet, it finishes with a strong note of ripe white grapes and a lusciously mouthcoating touch. This will pair well not just with vegetable, pasta and fish dishes, but with white meat dishes too, provided no tomatoes are involved. Lovely stuff. Drinking window: 2024-2026.

GD Vajra 2019 Freisa Kyè Langhe           94+

Anybody who knows me even just a little knows I like Freisa and its wines. But truth is, when you get to drink one as good as Vajra’s, just about anybody becomes a fan. Beginning with its pretty label, its iconic name (Kyè or chi è, meaning “who is it?”) and its uniquely powerful yet polished taste, this is really a pretty unique wine.

Fully saturated ruby colour. Complex, deep aromas of red cherry, blackberry, blueberry, cedar and violet are pure and precise. Then less dark in the mouth, with slightly more red fruit-dominated flavours, coupled with sweet spices, orange peel and cinnamon: this actually hints at Nebbiolo too, perhaps not surprisingly given that Freisa and Nebbiolo are each other’s closest relatives. Long, textured but wonderfully suave, this showcases youthfully chewy but noble tannins, a ton of ripe red fruit and a hints at noteworthy aging potential and further improvement (hence the ‘+’ on my score). If you’ve never tired a Freisa wine, and wish to try something full-bodied and structured but very elegant at the same time do yourself a favour and grab a bottle of this 2019 jewel from Vajra. Better still, grab two, and aged one bottle for another fifteen years and then get ready to marvel at what you’ll have in your glass. Drinking window: 2026-2039.

Cogno 2022 Anas-cetta Langhe Nascetta di Novello       94

I’m not sure I have had too many better Nascetta wines from Cogno than this one, and that’s saying quite something, given I have had a litany of great Nascettas from this winery over the last few decades.

Bright straw. Complex, layered nose of sweet yellow fruit, apricot, pear, rosemary, and sage. At once luscious and lively, with nicely concentrated yet lifted flavours similar to the aromas. Finishes long with outstanding clarity and cut. There’s a depth, a balance and a concentration to this Nascetta that is quite unlike that of any recent vintage. Well done. Drinking window: 2024-2029.

La Colombera 2022 Derthona Colli Tortonesi       93

One of the stars of the tasting I attended, the La Colombera 2022 Derthona Colli Tortonesi is an absolute gem. Luminous straw yellow in colour. The bright nose offers penetrating aromas of white stone fruit, lavender, minerals and lime.  Then also piercing in the mouth, with harmonious but lively acidity nicely framing and extending the stone fruit and diesel fuel flavours on the long zingy finish. La Colombera’s Timorasso Il Montino cru is an even better wine than this one, a good deal more concentrated and more complex, but for the money this is really hard to beat. Drinking window: 2024-2030.

Lodali 2020 Barbaresco Giacone Lorens         95

Everything you want a great Barbaresco to be, and should be. Very pale red with a pale pink-orange cast. Tremendously perfumed, very pure aromas and flavours of sour red cherries, wild strawberries, candied violet, peach and minerals, complicated by a dusting of sweet cinnamon. Finishes long and vibrant, with rising polished tannins, freshening acidity and repeating citrus and red berry fruit on the long back end. This has the grace of a ballerina. Drinking window: 2026-2035.

Tedeschi 2017 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva Capitel Monte Olmi                         95+

Very deep ruby. Concentrated aromas of dark plum, black cherry, coffee, cocoa, balsamic herbs and raisins. Thick, chewy and mouthcoating on entry, then more suave and graceful in the middle finishing long and classically austere. The flavours of dark plum, dark cherry and candied violet open and broaden with aeration, and are nicely framed by the noble tannins suggesting a long and graceful evolution in the bottle for what is still a very youthful wine (hence the ‘+’ attached to my score). Power and elegance, a neat combination that’s not easy to find in most wines, but the splendid Tedeschi 2017 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico Riserva Capitel Monte Olmi manages to pull it off, and then some. Drinking window: 2026-2036.

Tenuta Santa Caterina 2019 Monferace                     94

You’ve never had Grignolino like Monferace. Let me be crystal-clear: Grignolino is one of Italy’s best and most misunderstood varieties, but that’s only because, like Pinot Noir, it’s hard to get the wines right. But those who do make absolutely unforgettable gems. Tenuta Santa Caterina is one of the five-best producers of Grignolino wines: a long list of ultra-successful past vintages is there to prove it. For example, their classic Grignolino wine called Arlandino is one of Italy’s most delicious red wines year after year, almost without fail. You can drink it slightly chilled with simple pasta, pizza, burgers or even vegetable dishes and of course, vitello tonnato. But the Monferace is another animal altogether. This is the way Grignolino wines were once also made, with long oaking regimens (two years), a full-bodied, rich style of Grignolino wine that had been forgotten but is now making a comeback.

Deep luminous red-ruby. Concentrated almost brooding aromas and flavours of luscious red cherry, marzipan, raspberry nectar, candied rose, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Rich, round and fruity on entry, then more monolithic and austere in the middle, it opens slightly with aeration to showcase bright red and blue fruit flavours and some noteworthy noble tannic bite on the long finish. This will only improve with a few more years of cellaring, and actually needs that time to round out its tannins some more, but it’s already very impressive as is. Drinking window: 2026-2035.

Terenzuola 2022 Vermentino Nero Toscana            94

Have I had a better red wine this month than Terenzuola 2022 Vermentino Nero Toscana? Maybe, probably not. That tells you how delightful this beauty is. Made with the rare Vermentino Nero grape that grows mostly if not only in Italy’s Colli di Luni area situated between Tuscany and Liguria, only a handful of producers make mono-variety wines with it. Frankly speaking, based on this gem, there should be a whole lot more.

Good full ruby. Perfumed, vibrant aromas of violet, black cherry syrup, marine herbs, minerals and a hint of tobacco for added complexity. The bright, penetrating violet perfume that dominates in the mouth too, with both fresh and candied violet nuances complementing the dark berry and earthy flavours. The aftertaste is long remarkably light on its feet for what is really a sneakily concentrated wine of impeccable balance. Very, very well done. Try this with fish in tomato sauce, meatloaf, grilled burgers and tomato-based pasta dishes. So delicious you won’t want to put your glass back down, unless it’s because you need a refill. Drinking window: 2024-2028.