The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2026

Descrizione

Twelfth edition of our Essential Guide. Twelve years in which we have drawn on tastings, visits, competitions, as well as meetings and conversations to create a book that can guide wine lovers and consumers in choosing which wines to buy. The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2026.

The guiding philosophy of this publication is essentiality—not the review of thousands of wineries, but the careful selection of those which, according to editor-in-chief Daniele Cernilli and his team, are the very best and will be releasing unmissable wines on the market in the coming months.

This year, from among the many thousands of wineries examined, 1,349 have been selected, with a total of 3,428 wines reviewed, out of over 20,000 tasted—and probably many more if we consider all the wines our collaborators sample throughout the year. This is indeed a collective effort, relying on a team of expert tasters who spend the year traveling to experience Italy’s wine scene first-hand. As every year, about 10% of the wineries are rotated.

Within our selection, there is a sort of “guide within the guide”: a list of 867 wines that stand out for their excellent quality/price ratio, costing less than €18 in wine shops while scoring 90/100 or higher—many of them even cost less than €10. These wines are marked with the thumbs-up symbol, essentially the well-known “like,” and they are also featured in a mini-ranking that highlights the champion and the top 10 best buys.

Like any respected guide, the DoctorWine Guide also has its quality pyramid, represented by the now-famous “faccini”—the seal with Daniele Cernilli’s face, literally putting his “face” on the certification of the wines’ quality. A triple faccino is awarded to wines that score 99 or 100/100, a double faccino to those with 98/100, and a single faccino for wines scoring 97, 96, or 95/100.

All award-winning wines are listed in the introduction to each individual region, while in the general introductory pages you will only find the triples and doubles, along with the 18 Special Awards and the selection of the Top 50 varietal wines—wines made exclusively from a single grape variety, the most important ones grown in Italy.

Alongside wine ratings, there is also a winery rating system ranging from zero to three stars, assessing each estate based on its symbolic value within its territory, its consistency in quality, and its international reputation. This year, 138 wineries have reached the top level of three stars.