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Emilia-Romagna Native Vines – First Part
Rosa D'Ancona – September 1, 2006

Introduction

The Emilia-Romagna region is possibly the most famous Italian food valley, both nationally and world wide. It is not by chance that the regional capital, Bologna, was known in the Middle Ages as La Grassa (The Fat One, as even in those hard times, good healthful food and wine of similar quality were rarely absent even upon the poorest dinner tables.

To have an idea of the current state of the region with regards to wine and food tourism, it's enough to check out the abundance of products and flavors offered to tourists arriving yearly from all over the world. Even in a country known worldwide for its rich gastronomy, Emilia-Romagna stands out due to the extreme quality and variety of the products.

The region has 13 'Strade dei Vini e dei Sapori' (Wine and Flavor Roads) which runs along 2,000 kilometers (over 1,240 miles), with over 1,000 destinations between commercial farms, wineries, milk and cheese factories, bed & breakfasts, agriturismos and artisans' shops. The regional 'gastronomy chest' includes 26 products between PDO and PGI, which is more than any other Italian or European region.

In such a panorama, the vitiviniculture has a well respected place and very ancient traditional roots.

	EMILIA-ROMAGNA DOC and DOCG WINES Because of the overlapping of the various denominations, we have designed three maps. Please point your mouse to the following numbers to see the other maps: 1 • 2

In fact, traces of vine growing and wine production date bach to the Etruscan, Celt and Roman civilizations, as documented by various ancient literary and archeological sources. Thanks to the wide variety of grapes grown, the number of different cultivation techniques, the ongoing improvements of the technology aimed at increasing the product quality both in the vineyard and the cellar, as well as competitive pricing in the global market, the winemaking sector has experienced a substantial growth and obtained excellent results.

In this region, where the vines have found favorable growing conditions both on hillsides and in the lower plains, thus generating vineyards with well defined characteristics, over the past twenty years an extensive planting of international vine varieties has taken place. In the latest years though, this trend has reversed and many local producers are turning their attention to native vines, aiming at the production of wines which are ever more competitive in the global market, thanks to unique and characteristic perfumes and flavors.

That's why, in addition to well-known international varieties such as Chardonnay, Merlot, Sauvignon, or the classic native Lambruscos, Sangiovese and Albana, wines such as Montuni, Pagadebit, Fortana, Canina Nera, Uva Longanesi, Centesimino (local name for Savignon Rosso, or Sauvignon Rosso [Red Sauvignon]) and Pignoletto, are finding their market and are so well received.

The 2005 official data, provided by the Enoteca Regionale dell'Emilia Romangna (Emilia Romangna Regional Enoteca), give a fairly good idea about Emilia-Romagna's position in the national and international wine world. The grape production totaled 8,665,628 metric tons, from which around 7.5 million hectoliters (over 198 million gallons) of wine where produced, of which 2,635,690 were white wines, while the red and rosé wines accounted for 3,598,780. Roughly373.325 hectoliters of must was used for different products, such as the traditional balsamic vinegar from Modena or Reggio Emilia.

The wines with Denominazioni di Origine designation are 21, 20 DOC and one DOCG, plus 10 IGT varieties.

The hectoliters of DOCG and DOC wines produced last year were 1,512,969, while the IGT wines were at 25,21,693 hectoliters. There are 500 wine producing estates in the region, of which one fifth are vintner cooperatives. The exports absorb around 30% of production, with Europe, South America, North America and Asian countries, with Japan leading the pack, importing the vast majority.

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