The 2023 vintage will be remembered as a turning point for the mainstreaming of hybrid grape varieties in Italian viticulture.
It will also be evoked when tradesfolk recall the downturn in sales and volumes as prolonged inflation, saturated markets, rising competition, and declining interest in fine wine impacted the Italian wine industry.
But this year’s most interest prediction for Italian wine was published on Christmas Day 2023 by the excellent wine-focused news and media portal WineNews.it.
The post is an interview with and paraphrasis of the great Italian ampelographer and viticultural philosopher Attilio Scienza.
In the piece, Professor Scienza illustrates how the rising alcohol levels and sustainability crises caused by increasing climate change have made us “victims of terroir.” Or to put it more precisely and slavishly, quoting the professor (translation mine): “we are still victims of the ambiguity of terroir.”
He rightly points out that until the contemporary era, wine was not considered a luxury product but rather a human necessity — like food or potable water. For that reason, wine appellations sprung up primarily around transport corridors and hubs and were closely aligned with other products of consumption. Where trade routes existed for other and undoubtedly more important products, wine growers planted their roots where they knew the customers were.
Today, that model is entirely inverted.
Fine wine is grown in places where people wanted to grow it, not where it would grow with the greatest results.
Yes, there are counter examples, places like Burgundy where wine has been grown for centuries. But why did people plant grapes there in the first place? Because there was limestone in the slopes? Or because Dijon and Avignon were nearby?
If you trace the Montalcino DOCG back to its origins, you will find that Biondi Santi set up their cooperative because a new train station had been built nearby (Sant’Angelo Scalo).
In Napa, people planted Cabernet Sauvignon on the valley floor where apples should have been planted, not because it was the best place for the grape variety but because the people who lived there wanted to drink it.
Climate change, says Scienza, should prompt us to rethink where, what, and how winemakers grow grapes. And maybe that’s how we unchain ourselves from the historically false notion of terroir and make better wines and bolster more sustainability.