Vernaccia di San Gimignano

The climate is sub-Mediterranean, with dry summers, fairly cold winters, around 700 mm of rain and steady wind; fog is rare. The wine is made from Vernaccia di San Gimignano, with up to 15 per cent of other non-aromatic white grapes; aromatic varieties such as Traminer and Muscat are banned. A Riserva ages at least eleven months from the first of January after the harvest, then three months in bottle.

Vines grew here under the Etruscans, and Vernaccia arrived in the twelfth century. The town's tax ordinances of 1276 already record it being made and sold, and a genetic study commissioned by the consortium found today's vines to share a single root, with no crossing with varieties from elsewhere over the centuries. In 1966 it became Italy's first DOC; the DOCG followed in 1993.