Val di Magra

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Accessory grape varieties

Terroir

• The soils of the production zone are predominantly siliceous or silico-clayey in nature and low in limestone.
• From April to September the mean temperature ranges between 17.2 and 17.8 degrees, a level suited to sparkling wines and fresh whites but insufficient for structured wines from late-ripening varieties.
• Growing degree day totals hover around 1,400 units, a value that has favoured the abandonment of demanding varieties such as Sangiovese and Trebbiano toscano in favour of Merlot and Chardonnay.
• Rainfall from April to September ranges from 422 to 559 mm with a mean of 496 mm, with April and September being the wettest months and July and August considerably drier.
• Viticulture is practised on slopes steep enough to require training systems with rows oriented mainly along the lines of maximum gradient, in an area that extends from the plain up to 550 metres above sea level.
• The central geographical position of Lunigiana gives rise to a climate in which continental and Mediterranean characteristics combine, with maritime influences from the Tyrrhenian Sea alongside mountain influences linked to the elevations of the Apennines.

• Until the nineteenth century the widespread practice was vine training married to a living support tree (maple, ash, or elm), later replaced by dead chestnut-wood stakes and, from the 1980s onward, by specialised vineyards.
• The historian Pliny counted the wines of Lunigiana among the finest of ancient Etruria, and more recent sources record that they were exported to France to considerable acclaim.

• The white wines show a straw-yellow colour of varying intensity, while the reds are ruby red and the rosés a delicate pink.
• On the nose and palate the wines reveal characteristic and harmonious aromas that reflect the specificity of the cultivated varieties, with a modest level of acidity.

• The slow, prolonged ripening of the grapes on the vine, in a temperate climate characterised in its final phase by a high diurnal temperature range, contributes significantly to the distinctive organoleptic characteristics of the wines.

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in Italy

Sources

• eAmbrosia register (EU) — File number PGI-IT-A1431