Italian Wineries

Italian wineries: the start of winery tours and wine tastings in 1993

Before you get an overview of some great wineries to visit in Italy, let me give you a brief introduction to Italy's booming wine tourism. The Movimento Turismo Vino started Wine Day back in 1993. At the start of the new season, 25 wineries opened their cellars for wine lovers and tourists to taste their wines.

This start was a huge success. At that time, people had no idea that this event would grow into an insane success. Nowadays, more than 20,000 wineries are opening their doors during 'Cantine Aperte' to enable millions of people to taste the delicious wines that have been produced this year. In each (wine) region, the Movimento Turismo Vino has its own department, which - together with the many wine consortia - takes care of the quality and especially the promotion of the wines from its own region. These wine consortia are all developing initiatives to raise the awareness of a wine region and highlight its wineries. For instance, there are many official wine routes (called Strade del Vino) and a lot of (harvesting) wine festivals are organised.

The most beautiful wineries in Tuscany to visit

Tuscany is the most popular destination in Italy for foreign tourists. With its culture, fantastic landscapes, climate and of course... the great wines from this region. While some red wines (think Brunello di Montalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Chianti wines and Super Tuscans) are among the top in Italy (and even the world), you can also taste delicious white wine in and around San Gimignano (Vernaccia di San Gimignano).

This ideal combination makes wine region Tuscany very interesting for tourists and wine lovers alike. The full list of wineries in Tuscany - and other wine regions and wine cities - will be available soon.

However, the overview of wineries in and around Montalcino is already available.

My personal top 10 wineries in Italy

We have been traveling to Italy several times. You can read the story of our wine adventures. Every holiday we have tried to visit a winery somewhere. The winery tours and tastings always turned out to be one of the best moments of the holiday.

Beautiful memories to last forever.

In a few occasions, it was actually a specific wine holiday. But most of the time, visiting one or more wineries was part of our summer holidays. 

Thinking back quickly on all the holidays, this is my personal top 10 Italian wineries (the order isn't very important, I like them all for different reasons):

1. Arnaldo Caprai, Montefalco (super fun tour with tasting and lunch in the vineyard)
2. Villa Canestrari, Valpolicella/Soave (we try to stop by every time, for the Amarone)
3. Sella e Mosca, Alghero (great combo for a beach and wine holiday)
4. Al Rocol, Franciacorta (after Corona, finally back to Italy ...)
5. Cantina Leonardo da Vinci, Vinci (because it was our very first wine tasting tour in Italy)
6. Pieropan, Soave (La Rocca, a delicious white wine from the Garganega grape ...)
7. Bisol 1542, Santo Stefano in the Prosecco wine region Cartizze (because of the fairytale setting in this wine region)
8. Santa Maria la Palma, Alghero (with their great Cagnulari wine 'Reconta')
9. Matteo Correggia, Canale d'Alba (our first real wine tour, through Piedmont)
10. Stefano Accordini, Fumane (highest winery in the region, delicious wines)

All wineries above were wineries we have visited ourselves.

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