Previews Tre Bicchieri. The best wines of Calabria

Oct 12 2022, 10:57 | by Gambero Rosso

Previews of the awards of the wine tasting by Gambero Rosso's Vini d'Italia 2023 guide. Here are the best wines from Calabria.

Calabria: the run-up of Vibo and Reggio Calabria

Calabria's magical moment continues. For decades it was a sort of black sheep in rapidly growing southern Italy, but today, especially southern Calabria (which until a few years ago was completely absent from the national and regional wine scene, except for the occasional appearance by the sweet Greco di Bianco) is on an upward swing. Indeed, for some years now we've noticed the development of its two southernmost provinces: Vibo Valentia and Reggio Calabria, and this not only in terms of production volumes (which remain low), but above all in terms of quality.

From wineries such as Tenuta del Travale, Antonella Lombardo, Barone Macrì or Benvenuto, to those that
have already distinguished themselves, like Masicei, Brancati and Origini & Identità, who've managed, from the very beginning, to compete for Tre Bicchieri.

Cirò and the Tre Bicchieri of Calabria

Fortunately, there's no shortage of news from other parts of the region as well, starting with Cirò, where all the Tre Bicchieri assigned to Calabria were concentrated this year: namely the Cirò Riserva '17 by 'a Vita, Librandi's Cirò Riserva '20 Duca Sanfelice, Ippolito 1845's Pecorello '21 and Roberto Ceraudo's Grisara '21. In a few years wineries such as Vumbaca, Borgo Saverona, De Mare, Cerminara and Vulcano (just to name a few), have managed to present themselves as a valid niche alternative to historic, large producers such as Librandi and Ippolito, thanks to a range of high quality and original wines.

Paradoxically, however, the many wineries born of late in Cosenza haven't grown. Indeed, for some of these, we can only note a certain decline, however reluctantly—in these years of dizzying progress, they haven't managed a wine capable of crossing the finishing line. The number of producers increases, and with them the number of wines that our regional commission has to evaluate; this forces us to make painful choices. We're talking about wineries like Acroneo, for example, but also Le Moire, Malaspina, Pacelli, Zito or Santoro… We will try to remedy this in the next edition.