Five uncommon Italian light red wines that should be on your radar

Coco Chanel once said: “Fashion is made to become unfashionable”. This turns out to be true in the wine world. For the last few decades, flamboyant red wines with vibrant fruits, fuller-bodied, darker colour and even pronounced oak-derived vanilla and chocolate flavours have gained popularity. To make such wines, growers have opted for grape varieties or different clones that can produce a richer and more opulent style of wines. Yet, fashion comes and goes. Global warming means grapes now ripen more easily even in cooler areas and reaching a higher alcohol content becomes undesirable rather than a goal. Making lighter and more refreshing red wines is on trend. This gives rise to the revival of grape varieties once regarded as inferior, possibly due to it being acidic, tannic, and having less body and alcohol.