Viña en Toscana (Gaiole in Chianti)
Viticulture in Italy, understood as a practice of growing grapes by the production of wine has remote origins; not by chance the ancient name of Italy was Enotria (wine land), named after the Enotri, inhabitants of the present Basilicata, who from 500 years before Christ developed and perfected techniques of viticulture, winemaking and wine conservation .
The vine has existed in the peninsula for hundreds of years; the plants came mainly from Greece, as at the time the names of some very diffuse strains were attested. The Etruscans kept alive the techniques of wine cultivation and production, particularly in central Italy; successively the Romans in the course of the invasions of Gallia and Britannia exported to those places both the plants of vine and their techniques of viticulture.
During the Middle Ages viticulture was kept alive mainly on the merit of the monks inside the monasteries, although dedicated mainly to the production of wine of mass.
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