Italian wine is wine produced in Italy, a country which is home to some of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world. Etruscans and Greek settlers produced wine in the country long before the Romans started developing their own vineyards in the 2nd century BC. Roman grape-growing and winemaking was prolific and well-organized, pioneering large-scale production and storage techniques like barrel-making and bottling.[1]

Two thousand years later, Italy is one of the world's foremost producers, responsible for approximately one-fifth of world wine production in 2005.[2] In 2008, Italy bested France for the title of world's biggest producer for the first time in a decade, at nearly six billion liters.[3] Wine is extremely popular in Italy. Italians lead the world in wine consumption by volume, 59 liters per capita. (Compare this to the United States, at 7.7 liters per capita.)[4] Grapes are grown in almost every region of the country. More than 1 million vineyards are under cultivation