DoctorWine launches this year’s Essential Guide to Italian Wine

The eighth edition of the ‘Essential Guide to Italian Wine’ has been launched by DoctorWine, pinpointing the very best Italy has to offer.

The guide, which made its debut with the 2015 version, contains a total of 1,241 select wineries and 3,085 wines reviewed.

Among these, 721 were singled out for their excellent quality/price ratio, those that retail for under €15 and, in many cases, less than €10.

The aim of the guide is to be “essential above all” and, rather than “lumping together thousands of wineries” only select those that for DoctorWine considers to be the best and that in the coming months will offer the market very prestigious wines.

Speaking to db, Daniele Cernilli, aka DoctorWine said: “Just being selected to be among the over 1,000 cited is an achievement in itself.”

The guide’s evaluation system is done on three levels. One looks at the estate/winery with a rating that goes from one to three stars and takes into account how emblematic they are of their territory, the consistency of quality and their international image. Another focuses on the quality of individual wines and is expressed in a one to 100-point system.

Wines that have a rating of 95/100 receive a DoctorWine ‘seal’ in recognition of the very high quality of the wine in regard to the vintage present in this edition of the guide. Wines with a 98/100 rating receive a second ‘seal’ while a third ‘seal’ is given to wine with a 99/100 or 100/100 rating. Additionally, the third evaluation is the one for a wine’s quality/price ratio, which is distinguished by the famous ‘thumbs up’ symbol.

Cernilli explained: “In the end we compiled an ample overview, signaling out 1,241 estates that deserved to be included in our strict selection. A total of 3,085 wines were reviewed, for the most part reds, confirming what many foreign wine critics maintain, which is that Italy is a land of red wines. While this may be true in terms of percentages, it is not true in regard to quality given that there are some outstanding Italian wine wines – also sparkling and sweet wines.”

He highlighted how “it is important to underscore that being among the producers selected is of itself a distinction, given the number of wineries we examined, and all the wines reviewed are worth tasting. We are sure that everyone will find the wines they are interested in among those reviewed as well as those suited for special occasions. And even those who simply enjoy reading this guide will find stories concerning all the iconic Italian wines, glamour wines along with those that have made Italian winemaking history.”

Cernilli added: “In conclusion, we would like to point out that this guide contains not only the showcase wines of each estate but also wines to consume every day, wines that are easy to drink and which we single out for their quality/price ratio with a thumbs up symbol. These are wines that are offered at a reasonable price considering that they are, in any case, wines that passed our strict selection guidelines. They retail for under €10 euros or €15 if they obtained a rating of 90/100 or more and represent a quarter of the wines reviewed in the guide.”

Daniele Cernilli will be in London’s Piccadilly, to personally launch the 2022 edition of The DoctorWine ‘Essential Guide to Italian Wines,’ on 4 March 2022. This exciting trade-only tasting event brings together almost 30 producers from all over Italy selected from DoctorWine’s top 2021 selections. To attend the launch event, find the details here.