Albana

Albana is the white grape of Romagna, and it holds a small piece of Italian wine history: in 1987 Albana di Romagna became the first white wine in Italy to be promoted to DOCG, the top tier of the classification. The decision was widely criticised at the time, because the wine then being made was ordinary, and the promotion looked political rather than earned.

The grape itself is more interesting than that episode suggests. It has unusually thick skins for a white variety and a high phenolic content, which gives the wine a grip and a faint tannic bite that most Italian whites do not have. Made dry it is medium bodied with apricot, citrus peel and a bitter almond finish, and it takes skin contact well, which is why Romagna has become a centre for orange wine made from it.

Its best traditional style is sweet. The thick skins resist botrytis and dry well, so passito bottlings made from grapes dried on racks are concentrated and long lived, and this is where the DOCG makes sense. The dry version has improved a great deal since the 1980s, mostly through lower yields.