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Mature Barolo and Brunello bottles resting on a cellar table in warm light

Italian Wine Vintage Chart: the Years That Matter, from Barolo to Brunello

A year-by-year guide to Italian wine vintages: how the harvest shapes Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti Classico and Amarone, which recent years earn a place in your cellar, and where to find mature bottles from the great vintages that are still on sale in the UK.

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Dark red wine poured from a glass into a casserole of browned mince and soffritto, steam rising

food pairing

The Best Red Wine for Bolognese, in the Pan and in the Glass

Wine and bolognese is two questions, not one. What to tip into the pan, what to open at the table, and why the recipe deposited in Bologna leaves the colour of the cooking wine open. Plus Italian bottles for each job, from under ten pounds for the soffritto to Sangiovese, Barbera and dry Lambrusco for the glass.

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Bowl of fresh egg tagliatelle in meat ragu beside a glass of red wine

food pairing

The Best Wine for Pasta: Match the Sauce, Not the Shape

Pasta is a neutral canvas, so the sauce picks the wine and the shape picks nothing. A dish-by-dish guide to ragu, tomato and chilli, carbonara and cacio e pepe, pesto, seafood and baked pasta, with Italian bottles that fit each one under twenty five pounds.

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Risotto part way through cooking in a copper pan, the rice stained ruby by red wine, a glass beside it

food pairing

The Best Wine for Cooking Risotto, and How to Choose It

Wine that goes into a risotto is doing a different job from wine in the glass. What survives twenty minutes in the pan, what is wasted, and which Italian bottles are worth cooking with.

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An Indian table spread with tandoori chicken, a creamy curry in a karahi, naan, raita and mango chutney

food pairing

The Best Wine for Indian Food Is Probably Italian

Chilli, spice and richness punish the wrong bottle. Italian wine turns out to be unusually well suited to Indian food, from Prosecco with samosas to a chilled Lambrusco against a vindaloo. Here is how to choose.

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Saffron risotto alla Milanese in a shallow bowl, finished with butter and grated cheese

food pairing

The Best Wine for Risotto Starts with the Base, Not the Rice

Risotto is a canvas, not a flavour. The wine that works is the one that answers whatever is actually in the pan: saffron and marrow, porcini, squid ink or radicchio. Here is how to choose, appellation by appellation.

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Terraced vines growing in black volcanic soil on the north slope of Mount Etna at golden hour

travel

Sicily Wine Tours: Where the Volcanic Soil Changes Your Glass

Sicily has more than one volcano in the glass. This guide maps the island's volcanic vineyards, from Etna's 133 contrade across four slopes to the wind-buried bush vines of Pantelleria, and explains what changes in the wine as you move between them, which estates open their doors, and what to ask once you are standing in the cellar.

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A Vino Nobile di Montepulciano beside wrapped parcels and a blank gift tag

wine gifts

Italian Wine Gift Ideas for Every Occasion

The occasion chooses the bottle better than the budget does. Occasion by occasion, the Italian wine to give: what to bring to a dinner party, what a wedding deserves, the housewarming pair, thank-yous, retirements and big birthdays, plus the Italian custom of giving bottles in twos that solves half the decisions on this page.

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A Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore standing beside an ice bucket, ribbon ready for giving

wine gifts

Prosecco Gift Guide: the Best Prosecco to Give

Most Prosecco gifts are bought by the box, not the bottle. This guide fixes that: what the tiers on the label actually mean, from DOC through Valdobbiadene DOCG to Rive and Cartizze, which sweetness to choose, when rose and magnums make sense, and the moment to trade up to metodo classico instead.

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An Amarone della Valpolicella Classico standing beside wrapped gifts in warm low light

wine gifts

The Best Italian Wines to Gift a Wine Lover

Most wine-lover gift lists are gadget lists. This one gives the wine: the Italian bottles worth giving, matched to the drinker rather than the price tag, from pedigree Nebbiolo for the classicist to Franciacorta for the fizz devotee, with honest picks for white-wine drinkers, beginners and the sweet-toothed.

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A Ferrari Maximum Blanc de Blancs standing in a tissue-lined gift box, label out, ready to be handed over

wine gifts

How to Present and Serve a Wine Gift

Handing over a bottle well is half the gift. This guide covers presenting wine with the label out and the story ready, whether a host is obliged to open it, the sommelier's table ritual translated for home, quick triage for the bottle you have just been given, and what to do with the wine left in it.

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A 1957 Fontanafredda Barolo standing beside brown paper and ribbon, ready to be wrapped as a birth-year gift

wine gifts

Birth-Year and Anniversary Italian Wines: Choosing a Vintage Gift

A bottle from the year they were born or married is the most personal gift wine can make. This guide covers which Italian vintages genuinely hold up, how consorzio harvest grades work, honest routes around weak years, milestone-by-milestone picks for 2026, and how to open a bottle older than its drinker.

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Latest Articles

Italian Wine Vintage Chart: the Years That Matter, from Barolo to Brunello

The Best Red Wine for Bolognese, in the Pan and in the Glass

The Best Wine for Pasta: Match the Sauce, Not the Shape

The Best Wine for Cooking Risotto, and How to Choose It

The Best Wine for Indian Food Is Probably Italian

The Best Wine for Risotto Starts with the Base, Not the Rice

Sicily Wine Tours: Where the Volcanic Soil Changes Your Glass

Italian Wine Gift Ideas for Every Occasion

Prosecco Gift Guide: the Best Prosecco to Give

The Best Italian Wines to Gift a Wine Lover

How to Present and Serve a Wine Gift

Birth-Year and Anniversary Italian Wines: Choosing a Vintage Gift