Italian Wine Regions - Tre Venezie
Danzante Pinot Grigio is sourced from Trentino Alto Adige, Veneto, and Friuli Venezia Giulia, the three northeastern regions of Italy collectively known as the "Tre Venezie". With its relatively high altitude, cool summers and warm currents from the Adriatic Sea, this region allows Pinot Grigio to fully express its potential resulting in a wine that reveals intense perfumes and silky texture.
Trentino Alto Adige
Pane e vino fanno un bel bambino or "bread and wine make a beautiful baby".
As the name suggests, the Trentino-Alto Adige is comprised of two separate areas. Trento refers to the southern part of the region and its capital is Trentino (the ancient Roman Tridentum ). The name Alto Adige identifies the northern territory of the region that includes the higher ( alto ) part of the Adige River.
Trentino-Alto Adige wine region includes well known international grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, Moscato, Pinot Nero and Pinot Grigio, as well as Müller-Thurgau and three grapes native to the region, the white Nosiola and the red Teroldego Rotoliano and the Marzemino. Alto Adige's wine is produced mostly by small family-owned and managed wineries that sell their product locally with limited exports to Germany and Austria while Trentino's wine production relies on growers who joined into large cooperatives which produce wines that have consistent taste and characteristics year after year. These popular wines have found their niche, both in Italy and abroad, among wine drinkers who look for reasonably good and affordable wines for daily enjoyment.
Veneto
The Venetian trade routes that connected Europe with Asia brought great wealth and general prosperity to the region. In many provinces, especially around Treviso, mulberry cultivation and the breeding of silkworms imported from China brought more affluence and prestige to local residents. With money pouring in from all quarters, Venice began its great building projects, chief among them creating the lagoon and canal infrastructure and systems still enjoyed and used today.
Veneto is among the foremost wine-producing regions, both for quality and quantity. The region counts over 20 DOC zones and a variety of sub-categories. The three most well known DOCs are Bardolino, Valpolicella, and Soave. Other wines produced here are the white Bianco di Custoza, the Prosecco, the Breganze, and the Amarone. The importance of winemaking in this region is underscored by the creation in 1885 of the very first Italian school for vine growing and oenology. In addition, Veneto was the first region to constitute the first strada del vino or "wine road". This first wine-touring road featured special road signs providing information on vines and the wines they were made into and joined the Valdobbiadene and Conegliano DOC zones crossing a series of hilly vineyards.
The most appreciated wines in the region come from the provinces of Treviso, Verona, Padova, Venice, and Vicenza. The area around Verona, with its temperate climate and hilly surrounding, is believed to have cultivated grapes since the Bronze Age.
Friuli Venezia Giulia
One of the oldest inhabited Italian regions, it is believed that the first humans here dated back as much as 20,000 years ago. Around 1000 B.C., the Illyrian built fortified villages creating a basic social structure, but with the arrival of the Romans, the land and society was restructured following the Roman model. With the fall of the Roman empire the region's development slowed. In the Eighteenth century Charles of Hapsburg established the "free ports" of Trieste and Fiume, giving the Austrian empire access to the Mediterranean Sea. After WWII, the integration of Friuli's traditional agricultural heritage with the fast-growing industrial economy brought new wealth to the area.
The wines produced in this region represent only two percent of the Italy's production, consisting mostly of white wine. The local wines are remarkable for the number of grape varieties that are used in their blends. In addition to the native grapes, different varieties have been introduced over time.
The foremost white wine produced in this region is the Tocai Friulano. Because of a confusion between a Hungarian grape called Tokaj and a French one called Tokay, the European Community has demanded name changes of the French and Friuli grapes by 2006, allowing Hungary to keep the original Tokaj name. As a result, in a few years this most appreciated local white will be known under a different denomination, which we hope won't be an uninspired generic name such as Friuli Bianco or Bianco Friulano.
Other local whites include Chardonnay, Müller-Thurgau, Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Ribolla Gialla, Riesling Italiaco and Riesling Renano, Sauvignon Blanc, Traminer Aromatico, Verduzzo and Malvasia Istriana. Among the red produced in Friuli-Venezia Giulia are Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Collio and Collio Cabernet, Merlot, Pignolo, Pinot Nero, Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso, Schioppettino, Tazzelenghe, and Terrano.
Information gathered from www.winecountry.it