All (or almost all) of the typos in the The Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2025, at least the most egregious errors.
The Essential Guide 2025 is now in the hands of thousands of people who will have begun flipping through it and reading the first few entries, perhaps of wines tasted at one of the presentations to see if they agree with our judgment.
We too, finally having a printed copy in our hands leaf through it, looking anxiously at page after page to see if anything aberrant jumps out at us, some glaring error that was well hidden in the proofreading stage. And of course there are some.
The work of drafting
The making of the guide is a race against time, which we close in the editorial office in just two months, in three people, while the work of the website also goes on. It sounds like a lot, but just try to think what it means to collect all the contributors’ sheets (besides writing my own of course, but what else are Saturdays and Sundays in the summer for?), checking, verifying, correcting, uploading to the data base, translating, typesetting… In fact, I am talking about the very editorial work, the one that no one imagines and that is a huge amount of work, which comes after tastings and sheets.
Obviously, it is a job we do with passion and with all feelings, so the guide is a bit a piece of heart, actually two, since we close at the same time together with the Italian version also the English one. The climate in the editorial office is hectic but the atmosphere of complicity and support that is created is beautiful.
Over everything, editor Daniele Cernilli oversees, who the more he sees us struggling the more he feeds us, preparing tasty lunches, bringing trays of pizza for snacks and of course offering glasses of wine to taste.
But we had started with the mistakes. Here are the most glaring ones
In first place we put the price error of the two most expensive wines we have in the guide: the Masseto and the Crichet Pajé, which on the shelf go for more than 1,000 euros. Due to a bug in our system, which we never noticed, they turn out to be on sale for € 1.00 (instead of 1,000) and € 1.50 (instead of 1,500) respectively!
Then we have a few vintage errors. The most glaring one concerns a special award, The Winning Debut, which is Etna Bianco Contrada Arcuria 2022 Restivo Wines. 2022 and not 2020 as stated in the printed guide. As wrong vintages we also have Ornellaia Bianco, which is 2021 not 2022, and the Villa Franciacorta RNA, which is vintage 2007 not 2006. Surely there will be others, but so far we have not noticed them. This is where we may be helped by reports from producers and discerning readers.
Equally annoying (and this is not the first time it has happened to us, unfortunately) is the Barolo-Barbaresco swap or vice versa. Unfortunately, in the system’s “drop-down menu,” Barbaresco and Barolo are on top of each other, causing – in the rush – the switch. This year it was the turn of Barbaresco Riserva Pora 2019 from Produttori del Barbaresco to transform into a Barolo. Similar “transformation” for the Lambrusco di Modena Rosato Brut from the Emilian winery Ventiventi, which became Lambrusco Mantovano, even moving to another region.
And it doesn’t end there
Perhaps less serious, but no less annoying, are the absence of the Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Pastrolo 2021 Fontodi (a new wine released this year) from the list of Tuscan “faccini,” and the error in the name of the owners of Ca’ del Bosco: next to the Zanella Family, the GIV group was listed as another partner instead of Gruppo Vinicolo Santa Margherita or Famiglia Marzotto.
Finally, we conclude with a “positive” typo: the wines with the quality/price ratio are 514, four more than the 510 indicated.
For these typos, as for any others, we apologize to all readers and, of course, to the producers involved. And let’s hope we don’t find any others.
