Wine from Calabria?

Calabria has many wines. What is available will depend on where you live. Even so, you should at least find some wines from Calabria in a few wine stores in major cities in most countries. It is also worth looking in Italian neighborhoods and asking at Italian restaurants.

Until fairly recent times, much of the wine from southern Italy, including Calabria and close-by Sicily,was rather rustic. However there are DOCs in Calabria, and wine making has greatly improved recently.

The most famos wine from Calabria is Ciro, and it comes in red, pink, and white versions. Villages include Ciro, Ciro Martino, and parts of Melissa and Crucoli. You sometimes will see a village name on the label. The red and pink wines are made mostly from Gaglioppo grapes with a bit of Trebbiano Toscano and Greco Bianco. The white is made from Greco Bianco with a bit of Trebbiano Toscano. The reserva reds can age for several years, but non-reservas often are best consumed fairly young.

There are several other DOCs in addition to Ciro, and some good wine can come from most of them. There are a lot of producers too. Some you will see on bottles of Ciro are CACIB, Caparra & Siciliani, Fratelli Caruso, Vincenzo Ippolito, Librandi(Riserva Duca Sanfelice), and Fattoria San Francesco.

In most areas you will not find a wide selection of these wines, but the price of many is so reasonable that one can afford to experiment. Just remember that most of these wines are not for long aging, and some can be quite powerful.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.