Vino Novello is a collective term for a series of new wines released onto the Italian market every year in early November.

From Veneto to Sicily, roughly 15-20 million bottles of the stuff hit the enoteche, restaurants and stores, and always a couple of weeks before the much anticipated Beaujolais Nouveau.

Not all are convinced of the merits of Novello, but it is gaining in popularity each year especially amongst the young.

This is good news for wine producers who have just sustained high costs during the annual harvest in September. 60 million euros of good news apparently.
             
Italian producers tend to use a range of grape varieties such as Merlot, Sangiovese, Cabernet, Corvina, and Nero d'Avola.

The price of a bottle of Novello typically ranges from 3 to 8 euros. But is it any good?

The technique for producing Novello was invented by French researchers in the 1930's. They had wanted to find a way of conserving grapes at very low temperatures.

By putting the fruit in contact with carbon dioxide they found that the enforced fermentation process rendered the grapes gazzy and fizzy.

This produced a novel wine, rich in color and with a fresh flavour and intense fruity perfume. 

Today, the process is known as carbonic maceration and the uncrushed grapes are placed in sealed vats which are subsequently filled with the carbon dioxide.

In Italy, Vino Novello was only really commercialized from 1975 by Marchesi Antinori.

To be a Novello, 30% of the wine in the bottle must have had this treatment although in France the norm is 100%.

All Novello must ideally be consumed before the following Spring.

They are ideally drunk with light first courses, white meats or fresh cheeses, but also pizza, salumi and, above all, roasted chestnuts.