ENDPAPERS
Ranks of Tuscany
By LESLIE ADRIAN The French turned their attention to this many Years ago and have devised a system which works quite well—in France. The Germans followed suit (their wines being even rarer and more precious). Now it is Italy's turn, for Europe's most prolific wine-making country' has never classified its vintages, delimited areas or set regulations about labelling.
In Which? for October, Eirlys Roberts de- scribes the French registrations that are thirty Years old this year and asks, 'What French wines Can do, surely should not be impossible for British textiles.' Or for Italian wines?
Already some hesitant preliminary steps are being taken. In Tuscany there is a definite zone within which chianti may be made and dignified With the adjective classico, affirmed by the official Yellow seal or marca gialla. The most celebrated Wines from this area are probably those of Brolio, the estate of the noble family of Ricasoli, usually expensive in Britain (I8s.-19s.) because they are always estate-bottled and attract the higher rate of duty, as well as because they are Carefully made. In Tuscany, where about one hundred million gallons are produced annually (the figure comes from the wine chapter in Elizabeth David's Italian Food), there are at least eight other named chiantis and hundreds of unidentified vini rossi, which are shipped here merely as Tuscan red. Incidentally, the new edition of Mrs. David's book (Macdonald, 30s.) contains one of the best essays on this subject Written by an English authority.
But, as Signor Giaroli, director of the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, said at a dinner in London recently, the British tend to think that Chianti and Italian wine are one and the same thing. To disabuse those present, the Italian hosts then proceeded to display the merits of Vernaccia from Sardinia (described. in Luigi Veronelli's Wines of Italy as 'dry slightly sweetish tart,' no doubt in honour of the femininity of wine), Sylvaner from Bolzano in the Tyrol, Cecubo from Formio, Ischia Bianco, Barbaresco, Sas- Sella, Valpolicella, Marsala and Asti Spumante. No one present was left in any doubt about the versatility of Italian wine. But, of course, sume of these and many others as worthy are ,11nobtainable in Britain or anywhere outside 'lull'. And there are some shippers who do not scruple to use these lovely names on labels attached to bottles containing something not even resembling the real thing, depending con- fidently on our ignorance to get away with the fraud, which they consummate by overcharging.
How this can be tackled no one knows (there is firm opposition in the trade to any attempt to regulate French wines in Britain), but the Italian authorities intend to start at source, and at the same time naturally wish to extend our knowledge of their wines. Perhaps it is through knowledge that the best safeguard is to be found. To this end I welcome Veronelli's book, despite its quaintnesses, and rejoice in the news that Cyril Ray, after a winter sojourn in Siena at the wine museum (one might term that an absorbing occupation), is to publish the first comprehensive British book on Italian wine.
The great wines of Italy can be great indeed. A point that George Saintsbury missed when he wa-ote, 'As to Italian, I suppose that it does not
travel well, though Chianti, like Carlowitz, can be drunk.' The poor man had had bad Marsala in Guernsey and sparkling Lacrima Cristi 'which suggested ginger beer alternately stirred up with a stick of chocolate and a sulphur match.' Such wines do little to build either a reputation or an export trade.
In Ernst Hornickel's curiously chauvinistic and not entirely accurate Great Wines of Europe (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 63s.), Italy is accorded only five pages to France's thirty and Germany's ninety in the section he calls the 'Wine Peerage,' and only five areas are classified supreme- Barolo, Barbaresco, Gattinara (of which an Italian peasant said that it tasted like the descent of God in velvet trousers), Chianti classico and Montepulciano (Siena). With care and the right kind of ambition this score can be notched up to more respectable heights.
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