|
We
have searched far and wide to discover unique Italian wines that are
unavailable outside of the regions of origin. Our negotiated deal
offers 5% off all
Wineshop.it
products bought through the
londonfoodfilmfiesta website. Customers simply have to type in the
"Attached message" field of the "Delivery form"
the discount code"londonfoodfilmfiesta
2014" and the
discount will be applied when charging the customer’s credit card. (Credit cards are only charged when the goods are delivered, intact.)
You
can also join the
Wineshop Club while visiting the store, which offers you
a further 10% discount. Added together, that means a total 15%
discount and extraordinarily good value.
Italy has a history of wine-making that
dates back nearly 3,000 years. In fact, grapevines have been
cultivated in Italy since the second millennium BC, when Italians
came into contact with people from Crete. However, it was not until
the emergence of civilisation in Rome that wine-making became a real
art. The Romans allocated the role of protector of the vines to
their god, Bacchus, who was honoured in riotous Bacchanalian
festivals which eventually had to be suppressed by a decree in 186
BC.
The grapes used to be
trodden in "calcatorium" or crushed in "turcularium", and the stum
poured into "dolia", large terracotta vases where fermentation took
place. One of the earliest attempts to classify wine is found in the
ancient Roman "Naturalis Historia" where Plinius the Elder
distinguishes between about eighty high quality wines, destined to
be consumed by nobility, and a hundred or so medium and low quality
wines, destined to be consumed by the plebeians.
At Roman banquets strict
rituals governed how the drink was poured out. A little water was
added to the wine, sometimes sea water, and it was flavoured with
honey and spices by a so-called "arbiter", a figure that corresponds
to the modern sommelier. At this time Italy was widely known as "Enotria",
the land of wine, and it was the Romans, with the expansion of their
empire, who introduced the cultivation of the grapevine to France, a
country where in more recent times wine has become a focus of
national pride.
With the fall of the
Roman Empire the dark ages began, dark for both humanity and for the
art of wine-making. During the mediaeval period, which brought
famine, pestilence and destruction, it was largely the church, with
its need for wine for the communion, that prevented grapevines from
returning to their wild state. With the passing of a new millennium
and the advent of the Italian City States commerce returned, and
wine occupied an important position among the goods exchanged.
Between 1500 and 1700
certain wines became famous: Albana in Romagna, the wines of
Montalcino and San Gimignano in Tuscany, Aleatico in Lazio, Ellenico
in Campania and Mamertino in Sicily, some of which are still widely
known today. In 1716 the first decree to define the rules for the
production of a wine was issued by Cosimo III de’ Medici for Chianti
in Tuscany.
Industrial wine
production did not begin until the end of the nineteenth century.
John Woodhouse, an Englishman, was one of the first to make use of
modern wine-making techniques with the production of Marsala in
Sicily. Unfortunately, this was also the period when phylloxera, a
grapevine disease originating from America, drastically hit
wine-making in Italy and abroad. In a few years this disease
completely destroyed native Italian grapevines, which had to be
reintroduced from American stock. Following the replanting of the
vines, wine-making in Italy concentrated on quantity rather than
quality.
It was only after the
Second World War with the advent of the laws of
"Denominazione di
Origine Controllata"
(D.O.C. and D.O.C.G.) that wine-making in Italy
flourished again, concentrating on the production of quality wines
that are now valued by wine enthusiasts and experts throughout the
world. It was during this period that smaller wine-making companies
emerged, showing an astonishing level of dedication to cultivation,
traditional wine-making techniques and, above all, quality. Today
the Italian wine-making industry is made up of hundreds of small
companies that produce wines of absolute excellence, but whose fame
rarely travels beyond the borders of their region. |
literature
and food
|
