📍 Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre (“Five Lands”) is a group of five villages on the rocky coast of Liguria in north-western Italy: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. The area, together with Portovenere and its islands, was added to UNESCO's list in 1997. The wine zone belongs to Liguria.

The vineyards sit on steep terraces held up by dry-stone walls. Work must be done by hand, sometimes with small monorail carriers. The terraces run right above the sea, and the grapes get warmth and wind from the water.

The main grape is Bosco, joined by Albarola and Vermentino. They make dry white Cinque Terre, pale, slightly salty, with a citrus note, a good match for fish and pesto. A special product is Sciacchetrà, a sweet wine made from semi-dried grapes and aged in barrels.

Volumes are very small because plots are few and the work is hard, so Cinque Terre wines rarely travel far. Dry-stone walls on the terraces stretch for hundreds of kilometres, and the villages are best reached by train or on foot paths. White Cinque Terre should be drunk young and chilled, while Sciacchetrà is served in small amounts at the end of a meal.