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Winery
Baglio Di Pianetto
Vintage: 2012
2012 has, so far been a positive year for wineries around the world. While it may be a little too early to speak of the wines being made in the northern hemisphere, European and North American wineries have already begun reporting that their harvesting season has been generally very good, and are predicting to continue with the kind of successes they saw in 2011. However, 2012 has been something of a late year for France, due to unpredictable weather throughout the summer, and the grapes were ripening considerably later than they did in 2011 (which was, admittedly, an exceptionally early year). French wineries are claiming, though, that this could well turn out to be advantageous, as the slow ripening will allow the resulting wines to express more flavour and features of the terroir they are grown in.
The southern hemisphere has seen ideal climatic conditions in most of the key wine producing countries, and Australia and New Zealand particularly had a superb year, in particular with the Bordeaux varietal grapes that grow there and which love the humidity these countries received plenty of. Also enjoying a fantastic year for weather were wineries across Argentina and Chile, with the Mendoza region claiming that 2012 will be one of their best vintages of the past decade. Similar claims are being made across the Chilean wine regions, where Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon had an especially good year. These two grape varietals also produced characterful wines on the coastal regions of South Africa this year.
Varietal: Viognier
In the Rhone region of France, one of the most ancient and highly esteemed grape varietals is the Viognier, a green-skinned grape famed and admired for its highly aromatic qualities and delicious fruit-forward nature. The wine it produces is remarkably pale, and is a popular choice with those looking for an extremely elegant wine to be enjoyed in hot weather and paired with equally aromatic foods. The Viognier varietal is known for having an extremely floral nose, which gives an impression of summery sweetness over a wine which is usually dry, although it is occasionally given over to noble rot in order to intensify its sugars. Viognier grapes can be successfully blended with several other grape varietals, as they are in certain New World countries, and can also be aged to produce exceptionally crisp and dry white wines.
Region: Sicily
There are few wine regions in the world with such an ideal terroir and climate for viticulture as that found on Sicily. This Italian island has been an important center for wine production for several thousand years, with experts claiming that the ancient Greeks were the first to bring wine-making techniques to the island. The almost year-round sunshine and rich, fertile volcanic soil of Sicily makes the vintner's jobs very easy, and grapevines thrive and flourish more or less everywhere on the island. Sicily is widely renowned for its excellent sweet dessert wines, and for fortified wines such as Marsala, yet the popularity of their dry red and white produce is ever rising, thanks to their drinkability and fantastic fruit flavors which really manage to put across the sunny, almost tropical nature of the island they are grown on.
Country: Italy
Italy is recognised as being one of the finest wine producing countries in the world, and it isn't difficult to see why. With a vast amount of land across the country used primarily for vineyard cultivation and wine production, each region of Italy manages to produce a wide range of excellent quality wines, each representative of the region it is produced in. Any lover of Italian wines will be able to tell you of the variety the country produces, from the deliciously astringent and alpine-fresh wines of the northern borders, to the deliciously jammy and fruit-forward wines of the south and the Italian islands. Regions such as Barolo are frequently compared with Bordeaux and Burgundy in France, as their oak aged red wines have all the complexity and earthy, spicy excellence of some of the finest wines in the world, and the sparkling wines of Asti and elsewhere in Italy can easily challenge and often exceed the high standards put forward by Champagne. Thanks to excellent terrain and climatic conditions, Italy has long since proven itself a major player in the world of wines, and long may this dedication to quality and excellence continue.