Ten Italian wines for beginners: how to train your palate

Italy has more than five hundred appellations and a few hundred native grape varieties. For a beginner, it’s like learning a language by starting with the entire dictionary: you end up memorising names and understanding nothing. Better to do what you do with real languages: ten well-chosen sentences, each with a grammatical rule inside.

The list that follows is not a ranking of Italy’s best wines, and indeed Barolo, Brunello and Taurasi are missing. Those are wines that demand an already trained palate, and starting there is like reading Gadda before Calvino. The criterion is different: each appellation here teaches one precise thing, and together they cover the whole basic vocabulary, that is sparkling, whites, reds and a sweet wine, from the Alps to Sicily. No brands: we’re talking about styles and territories, so anyone can find them in any wine shop.

Bubbles first, to understand time

1. Franciacorta. The first exercise is about method, not grape. Franciacorta has been a DOCG since 1995 and is made only by the metodo classico, the traditional method: the second fermentation takes place in the bottle and the wine stays in contact with the yeasts for at least 18 months in the non-vintage version, 30 in the vintage one. You can taste that time: bread crust, hazelnut, a finer, creamier bead. The most instructive comparison is with a Prosecco, which as a rule undergoes its second fermentation in large steel tanks (the Martinotti method, which the French call Charmat) and stakes everything on the fresh fruit and flowers of Glera. Drunk side by side, they teach better than any manual the difference between a wine that speaks of the grape and one that speaks of the time spent in the cellar. If you want to go one step further, Franciacorta Satèn, white grapes only and lower pressure, shows how the same idea can become softer.

Three whites, three different lessons

2. Soave. This is the white that teaches you not to chase aroma alone. Garganega, at least 70% by regulation, is not an explosive grape: it works on texture, on almond, on a savoury tang that in the Classico zone, towards Monteforte d’Alpone, owes much to soils of volcanic origin. Beginners tend to judge a white by its nose. Soave forces you to judge it in the mouth, and for many it’s the first time that happens.

3. Vermentino. Here the lesson is salt. In Gallura, in the north-east of Sardinia, Vermentino has had a DOCG since 1996 and grows among granite and wind; but it is also found in Liguria and along the Tuscan coast, and the game of comparing the three versions is already a short course in geography. Mediterranean herbs, citrus, a slightly bitter finish: it’s the simplest way to understand what the experts mean when they talk about “sapidità”, that much-abused word for savoury saltiness, which here at last takes on a concrete meaning.

4. Verdicchio. The white of the Marche, in its two zones of Castelli di Jesi and Matelica, teaches structure. It has firm acidity, a body you don’t expect and a remarkable capacity to age, which demolishes the prejudice that whites must be drunk within the year. For decades it was remembered mainly for its amphora-shaped bottle, inspired by ancient vessels and introduced in 1953. Today the bottle matters less than what’s inside, and rightly so.

The red heart: acidity, tannin and method

5. Chianti Classico. This is the teaching red par excellence, because it lines up two sensations beginners tend to confuse: the acidity that makes you salivate and the tannin that dries your mouth. Sangiovese, at least 80% by regulation and often more, has plenty of both, along with cherry, violet and an earthy touch. The appellation has a story of emancipation: DOCG since 1984, separate from generic Chianti since 1996, no white grapes in the blend since 2006, and since 2023 eleven subzones (the UGA) to be stated on the label of the Gran Selezione. A wine that took forty years to learn to speak of place deserves attention.

6. Barbera. After Chianti, Barbera serves to pull the two sensations apart. It’s a very acidic red with little tannin: your mouth waters but doesn’t dry. Drunk after a Sangiovese, it makes tannin obvious by its absence. Barbera d’Asti has been a DOCG since 2008 and since 2014 its most ambitious tier has had an appellation of its own, Nizza, made from Barbera alone. Barbera has a reputation as an everyday wine, and deserves it in the best sense: it goes with almost everything.

7. Valpolicella. This is not a lesson about a grape but about what the human hand does. With the same grapes, Corvina above all, then Corvinone and Rondinella, Valpolicella produces a fresh, light red, the Ripasso (wine refermented on the pomace of Amarone) and Amarone itself, made from grapes left to dry for months before crushing. Three bottles from the same area show an entire spectrum of concentration, alcohol and perceived sweetness. It’s best to begin with the simplest, often the most underrated.

The South and sweetness

8. Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. First lesson: the name. Here Montepulciano is a grape variety, at least 85% of the wine, and has nothing to do with Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, which is Tuscan and made from Sangiovese. Second lesson: colour and softness. It’s a dark, fruity red with ripe, generous tannins; the appellation has existed since 1968 and it’s one of the most honest ways to understand what “round” means. The rosé version has a name of its own, Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, and is among the country’s most serious rosés.

9. Nero d’Avola. Sicily’s emblematic grape teaches sunshine: ripe fruit, plum, spice, sometimes a hefty alcohol level that warms. The useful comparison is with Cerasuolo di Vittoria, the first and only Sicilian DOCG since 2005, where Nero d’Avola (between 50 and 70%) joins Frappato, lighter and more floral. The result shows that even in the South, freshness is a choice, not a miracle.

10. Moscato d’Asti. We end with a sweet wine, and it’s no appendix. Moscato d’Asti, from Moscato bianco grapes, has by regulation between 4.5 and 6.5 degrees of actual alcohol and a pressure no higher than 2.5 bar: lightly sparkling, intensely perfumed, with its residual sugar held in balance by acidity. It’s the subtlest lesson on the list: a successful sweet wine never cloys, because acidity keeps it upright. Grasp this, and you grasp the world’s great sweet wines too.

How to use this map

The best way is not to drink them in order, but in pairs: Franciacorta and Prosecco, Chianti Classico and Barbera, Valpolicella and Amarone, Nero d’Avola and Cerasuolo di Vittoria. Direct comparison does in one evening what reading does in a month, because the palate learns by difference, not by description.

And once you’ve done all ten, it’s best to forget the list. The purpose of a beginner’s map is to stop being needed as soon as possible. Anyone who has understood the difference between the acidity of a Barbera and the tannin of a Sangiovese already holds everything they need to venture towards the difficult names. Our view is that Italy is better learned from its middle-ranking appellations than from its monuments: the “easy” wines are the ones that tell the truth without needing an interpreter.

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