Ep 575: Lombardy, Italy

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week I cover Lombardy/Lombardia, one of the smaller wine production areas of Italy. Lombardy, home to the cities of Milan, Bergamo and Brescia is known far more for its fashion, its industry, and osso bucco and risotto alla Milanese than it is for its wines, but there are some gems to be discovered.

Photo: Lugana Credit: Consorzio Lugana

Because there is limited availability of these wines, I only cover the major regions that you may encounter and discuss the terrain of Lombardy and the terroir of each of the fine wine regions.

Lombardy is known in the wine world primarily for Franciacorta, the sparkling wine made in the Champagne method, which has been called the best sparkling wine of Italy. But Lombardy is is more than just Franciacorta. There are exceptional sparkling, sweet, and still wines of Oltrepò Pavese in the southwest of the region, complex reds from the Alpine area of Valtellina on the Swiss border, tasty, refreshing whites from Lugana near Lake Garda, and other interesting regions that have significant production.

Photo: Valtellina. Credit: Consorzio Valtellina

I hope you enjoy this look at one of the smaller wine producing areas of Italy and, more importantly, that you can use this info if you ever see these wines on the shelf or (more fun!) find yourself in Lake Garda or Lake Como or Milano with some time and desire to explore the wines of this beautiful place!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.7	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork.
0:21.4	This podcast is made possible by my exclusive sponsor, Wine Access. Wine Access curates
0:26.9	exceptional wines from around the world, some from iconic producers, others from small under
0:31.5	the radar vineyards that would be hard for us to find on our own. Every bottle comes with the story
0:36.0	behind it, who made it, where it's from,
0:37.8	why it's special. Check out my exclusive wine club where I select each bottle based on wine
0:42.0	quality, not label or shelf appeal. Go to wineaccess.com slash normal to join my club today.
0:47.6	Listen in the middle of the show for more details.
0:50.8	I have had a very busy weekend. I sent my older daughter off to school this week. That was a big, big change. I know a lot of you are doing that also. Wow, lots of work on the parents part too. But hopefully they're all going to find their place in their new schools. So I wish everybody who's going through
1:11.8	that lots and lots of luck. For the show, we are going back to Italy, my spiritual home, I like to say.
1:20.2	And we're going to go to Lombardy, or Lombardia, which is in the northern portion of the country where Milan is.
1:28.9	Now, this is not an area that is known for lots of famous wine.
1:34.6	But it is interesting.
1:35.9	And many of you have contacted me over the years and said, you know, I'm going to Milan
1:40.8	or I'm going to Lake Garda.
1:42.4	I would like to do some wine stuff. What's around there?
1:45.4	So I figured I would answer that question by doing a whole show on Lombardia or Lombardy.
1:51.9	And before we do that, as always, a couple of things. Classes, I have the wines of
1:56.2	Alsace coming up, wines of the Rhone coming up, and then all of the classes through November are
2:02.4	going to be posted. I know some people are concerned about the impact of tariffs. If you want to
2:07.3	order wine early and get in on the classes before they sell out, which they have been doing
	...

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