News Alessandro Torcoli

How many wine DOC are there in Italy?

How many wine DOC are there in Italy?

On 7th July we met about forty Chinese journalists visiting Italy and gave them a preview of the results of a survey carried out by Civiltà del bere on Italian wine DOC/DOCG/IGT wines as seen by the six main Italian wine Guides. It emerged, surprisingly, that fewer than and half of our denominations, according to Italian wine critics, deserve a rating of excellence. We don’t agree with such severity and neither do we believe that the Italian Guides can really condition the consumer and move markets. However, we often repeat that there are many tiny designations of origin in Italy, in some cases there are even “phantom” DOCs existing only “on paper”, with no wine in circulation. This is anomalous, too, and does not help Italian wine enthusiasts in the world to understand the legislation system that tries to protect the origin and quality of the product, with different levels of controls, from the most detailed for the Controlled Designation of Origin Guaranteed (DOCG) to the less restrictive regulations for Typical Geographical Indication (IGT).

How many Denominations are there in Italy? This is the recurring question.

According to the last count there are 73 DOCGs, 330 DOCs and 118 IGTs.

We believe that many have a value of protecting culture, the environment and the national ampelographic heritage, but fewer than a third, probably, have a significant commercial value on international markets: soon we will investigate this subject in more depth in order to provide a realistic picture of the volumes and values of Italian Denominations. With an unpublished comparison with France, which also has over 400 AOCs (Appellation d’origine contrôlée).

 

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