The Best Wines & Vineyards

Chianti Classico: This is Italy's most famous product of Bacchus. Chianti is as variable as it is versatile, and while there's plenty of mass-produced cheap wine out there, the vintners of the Chianti Classico zone in the hills between Florence and Siena craft excellent wines of the highest quality.

Vernaccia di San Gimignano: In his Divine Comedy, Dante wrote of this dry, peppery, straw-colored white that deepens to gold with age. Tuscany's best white is available all over the Town of Towers. It was the first DOC wine in Italy and is one of the few DOCG whites in Italy. The consortium of Vernaccia producers dates back at least to 1276; you can contact them in town at the Villa della Rocca (tel. 0577-940-108).

Morellino di Scansano: This is a popular Maremman riff on the chianti formula smoothed out and juiced up with Spanish Alicante (Grenache). The top producers are Le Pupille (tel. 0564-505-129), Mantellassi (tel. 0564-592-037), and Erik Banti (tel. 0564-602-956). Brunello di Montalcino: Brunello is the smell of mossy, damp earth and musky berries. It tastes of dark, jamlike fruits and dry vanilla. This is Tuscany's most powerful red, perhaps the top wine in all Italy. Break out this complex elixir to accompany the mighty bistecca alla fiorentina (Florentine-style steak). Visit American-owned Banfi (tel. 0577-816-001) for the wine museum in its medieval castle or Poggio Antico (tel. 0577-848-044) for the direct sales of its award-winning Brunello.

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano: This purple-garnet wine smells of violets and tastes of juicy red berries, dark fruits, and a hint of musty, mossy earth. Of the traditional wines (no French grape intrusions), it plays second banana to Brunello, but many people find this Noble Wine a far more forgiving vino, and much more versatile. Although it's powerful and complex, you can drink it with just about anything but fish. The best producers are all represented by Maddalena Mazzeschi (tel. 0578-758-465), and if you must choose just one bottle, make it an Avignonesi (tel. 0578-757-872).

Rubesco Riserva: This unique and elegant Umbrian wine made by a single estate was so deliciously demanding of attention the authorities had to create a tiny DOCG zone just to incorporate the vineyard. The vintner responsible was Giorgio Lungarotti, experimenting with his grapes in Torgiano south of Perugia. Although all the Cantine Lungarotti (tel. 075-988-0294) wines are excellent, the best is the Rubesco Riserva label. The estate also runs a fascinating wine museum in Torgiano itself.

Orvieto Classico: Orvieto's white is an ancient wine, made at least since the days of the Etruscans. In Orvieto itself, you can get the traditional abboccato variety, a juicy, semisweet version hard to find elsewhere in this age that demands gallons of dry white table wines. Although Ruffino is a perfectly fine vineyard, you can usually pick up a bottle of its Orvieto Classico secco at your local U.S. wine shop. As long as you're in the actual neighborhood, try smaller producers like Decugnano dei Barbi (tel. 0763-308-255) and Barberani (tel. 0744-950-113).

Sagrantino di Montefalco: This dark wine with a rounded mouth feel and tannic bite -- about the biggest and most complex wine you'll get in Umbria -- has finally been recognized by the new DOCG classifications. You can get a taste at top producers Antonelli (tel. 0742-791-5852) and Cantina A. Fongoli (tel. 0742-350-359) in San Marco di Montefalco, Il Girasole in Montefalco (tel. 0742-379-280), Rocca di Fabbri in Fraz, and Fabbri (tel. 0742-399-379) and Cantina Paolo Bea (tel. 0742-379-668) in Cerrete di Montefalco.

Tignanello: One of the most successful blends of native Sangiovese and cabernet grapes, this complex "table wine" is made by the Antinori vineyards near San Casciano, just southwest of Florence (tel. 055-23-595).

Sassicaia di Bolgheri: This is a huge and complex cabernet sauvignon; the vines originally came from Château Lafite. The estates around Bolgheri on Livorno's coast all make wine from a mix of cabernet, merlot, and/or Cab Franc varietals -- no Sangiovese in these parts. The actual Sassicaia wine with the DOCG label is astronomically priced, and the lone estate that produces it (Tenuta San Guido) is unapproachable, as is the neighboring and similar Tenuta dell'Ornellaia. But the nearby Grattamacco vineyards at Podere Santa Maria, near Castagneto Carducci (tel. 0565-763-933), will welcome you, and their drinkable Frenchified wines are much more affordable.

Vin Santo: Grapes that have begun to turn to raisins on the vine and then been sun-dried are fermented in oak barriques to produce Tuscany's powerful sweet dessert "holy wine." The amber drink is fine on its own, but the real way to enjoy it is to use cantucci (twice-baked hard almond cookies) as sponges. Every winemaker sets aside a few barrels of vin santo, but some of the best is made by the chianti-inventing Cantina di Brolio (tel. 0577-73-01 or 0577-749-066). Umbria's resounding answer to Tuscany's vin santo is Sagrantino Passito, from the Montefalco region, a red dessert wine of high refinement. For more information on it, contact the Centro Nazionale di Studi sui Vini Passiti in Montefalco on weekday mornings (tel. 074-79-122).