If you’re anything like me, you’ll find navigating the wine aisle of your local supermarket a bit overwhelming.
I don’t know my Barolo from my Burgundy, and I’m not exactly sure what people are on about when they call a wine “dry.”
I’m not sure what’s “meant” to be good either (I love Barefoot’s Pink Muscato, and I’ve also liked a lot of chiantis, though I’m not sure what they are. Probably not the most chic).
So, when wine communicator and consultant Luke Flunder shared on TikTok that there was a shortcut to “understanding Italian wine in less than 40 seconds,” you’d best believe I tuned in.
It’s just three letters on the label, he said ― though he wrote it’s just a rough guide, and there are some exceptions.
What letters?
Lots of Italian wines have letters on their labels as a part of Italy’s wine classification system, wine site Decanter says.
These are:
- DOP – Denominazione d’Origine Protetta / Protected Designation of Origin (divided into DOC & DOCG)
- IGP – Indicazione Geografica Protetta / Protected Geographic Indication
- VdT – Vino da Tavola
Luke said that if you see “IGT on the label, it comes from a big area” and is more likely to be “mid-quality.”
“If it has DOC on the label it comes from a smaller area [with] more rules and regulations” and tends to be “mid to high-quality.”
Meanwhile, if your wine is labelled DOCG “it comes from an even smaller area [with] even stricter rules and regulations.”
This “should mean the highest quality,” he said.
Decanter says that VdT means “table wine” which “is the lowest level of wine classification in Italy, typically designed for high volume bulk wines, with little in the way of restrictions.”
And if you see no letters at all on your Italian wine’s label, Luke explained that “grapes can come from anywhere in the country.”
What was that about exceptions?
Luke stressed in the caption of his TikTok that the three-letter (OK, fine, sometimes four-letter) system isn’t 100% watertight.
“This is a rough guide but there are exceptions to the rules,” he said, sharing that “some wines such as Super Tuscans are classified as IGT but are amongst the most sought after in the world.”
Decanter agrees, adding that “It’s possible to find early vintages of prestigious wines such as Redigaffi, Le Pergole Torte, Sassicaia and Ornellaia labelled as VdT, since the alternative classifications did not provide the flexibility producers were looking for at the time and IGT... did not yet exist.”
Still, as a super-quick reference point when you’re buying pressies for your fanciest friend, the three-letter scan is pretty handy right?