The Orvieto

Today, the "Orvieto" is one of the best known white wines in the world and it alone represents about three quarters of the D.O.C. wine production in Umbria.

Some judgements

It is a wine appreciated by great wine judges like Philip Dallas, author of a beautiful book on the Italian wines (Orvieto’s wine is, like Frascati, Chianti, etc., one of Italy’s best known wines abroad.. it is the ideal wine to share while initialing a young lady in to Bacchic delights”) or Alexis Lichine, a great expert of French wines (“vin blanc délicieux d’Italie. C’est un de ceux dont la qualité est la plus constante”)

The grape varieties

The Orvieto is obtained from the vinification of five different varieties of very ancient grapes selected in the centuries: theprocanico, the verdello, the malvasia, the grechetto and the drupeggio.

Typologies

Today, the dry version is the most famous, but the traditional production of the mellow, smooth and sweet Orvieto continues.

There is a version derived from extra-ripe grapes attached by the noble rot, the Botrytis cinerea, that gives wine unique characteristics of concentration and elegance.
Generally, in the autumn mornings a thick fog favours the development of this particular mould on grapes. This mould lives on the water inside the pulp of grapes and it enlarges the pores of the skin without tearing it thus causing evaporation when the bunch of grapes warm in the sun.
The resulting musts, therefore, are very sweet, rich in glycerine which gives wine a particular greasiness and they have all the aromatic components concentrated.

The harvest of these grapes occurs very late in the year and it is performed in different times so that this phenomenon can fully take place.
About half the harvest disappears in the form of evaporated water, but quality requires sacrifice. This extraordinary process takes place only in a few areas where climate conditions permit it: in Sauternes in France, in the Valley of the Rhine in Germany, in Tokaj in Hungary, in Orvieto in Italy. A vast literature exists about it.