Nevertheless, unlike Montepulciano and Montalcino, the vines cultivated around San Gimignano produce the 'Vernaccia', a dry, pale, white.

It is a wine so gentle you could be drinking a refined mineral water and its character hasn't changed for centuries.

Tarigioni writing in 1770 commented: it did not awaken a sensation of great taste, so that it seemed a very light wine when drunk, but that lit a great fire in the stomach.

The Vernaccia of San Gimignano was the very first Italian wine to be granted the 'Name of Origin' in 1966 and in 1993 it entered the highest level of quality the 'Controlled and Guaranteed Name of Origin'.

Just don't try climbing the town's famous towers after a bottle at lunch time.

Consorzio della Denominazione San Gimignano

See also Cod in Vernaccia wine