Wines from LiguraLiguria is an Italian viticultural region located in the north-west, bordering to the north with Piedmont. It covers an area of little less than 2000 hectares, and here the cultivation of vine and the production of Ligurian wines is particularly difficult because of the morphology of the land and the modest quantity of the harvest is produced with high and admirable efforts. In fact, soils of Liguria have great differences in height and slopes, with vines overlooking the sea, so that viticulture can be defined as heroic: vineyards are made of terraces supported by stone walls.
However Liguria produces high quality wines and with particular organoleptic characteristics thanks to the exposition of the vineyards on the sea. Most of the white berried grapes are cultivated, in particular the main white grapes used for the production of white Ligurian wines of the region are Vermentino, Albarola and Bosco, from which is produced the renowned "Cinque Terre" wine and with the same dried grapes is produced the excellent and rare "Schiacchetrà". Among white grapes there is also Pigato which gives life to the homonymous wine of Liguria.
Even though the production of Ligurian red wines is not vast, it is however interesting. The main red grapes of the region are Ormeasco, the name used in Liguria for Dolcetto, Rossese and Ciliegiolo.
Liguria does not have any Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG), however it has 8 Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC): Cinque Terre, Colli di Luni, Colline di Levanto and Golfo del Tigullio on the eastern side; on the western side, instead, there are Riviera Ligure di Ponente, from which is produced an important dry white wine from pigato grapes, Rossese di Dolceacqua, which represents the best red wine of the region, Val Polcèvera and Ormeasco di Pornassio.
Making Ligurian wine is not a simple business at all, the impervious landscape makes the cultivation of grapes a real and proper heroic enterprise.
