Beyond Tannins: Italianity, Pleasure, and the Problem of “Less”

Andrea Lonardi MW discusses how tannin isn’t heaviness. It’s architecture—and one of the ways Italian wine keeps its identity.

Editor’s Note: How This Essay Came to Be
Jessica Dupuy

Oftentimes the best ideas arrive in formats that aren’t, at first, “essay-shaped.” This was a surprise I discovered during the process of co-writing Italianity, a forthcoming book on the culture of Italian wine with Andrea Lonardi MW. (April 2026)

Sometimes they arrive as a conversation in a car. Sometimes as a voice note. Sometimes as Andrea, a native Italian, and one of the sharpest strategic minds I know, standing in front of a room in Alto Adige, building an argument in real time with a flight of glasses and a language that feels more architectural than academic.

This piece began that way: as a recent presentation Andrea gave on tannins. On the surface, it was an exploration of texture—how tannins behave, how they move, how we describe them. But underneath, it was the kind of question that sits at the heart of Italianity: How do modern wine markets shape what we make? And how do we respond without sanding off the edges that make a place itself?

That tension is exactly what this book is trying to name.

Italianity is a collection of essays—some written outright by Andrea, some written fully in my own voice, and many formed the way this one was: collaboratively. My role in the project has often been to hear what Andrea is reaching for—what he means beneath the technical layer—then shape it into a written form that holds attention and carries the idea with clarity. Andrea brings the deep Italian grounding, the precision, the instinct for where the market is headed; I bring the editorial lens, the pacing, and the translation of thought into narrative.

In this essay, you’ll feel that collaboration at work.

What started as a structured tasting framework in Alto Adige became, in writing, something more personal: a reflection on why tannin is suddenly such a live-wire topic; why “less” has become a stylistic default; and why Italy—in particular—can’t afford to chase drinkability in a way that erases soul. Because in Italian wine, tannin isn’t simply a technical lever. It’s part of identity. It’s part of the table. It’s part of what we mean when we say Italianity, which is the culture of Italian wine, expressed through choices, not just regions.

Below is a small glimpse into the world we’re building in Italianity—and into the collaborative process behind it.

Now, Andrea.

Beyond Tannins: Italianity, Pleasure, and the Problem of “Less”

Andrea Lonardi MW

It began for me in the least romantic place: between two stainless-steel tanks.

Both samples were from the same harvest. Both were clean, healthy, full of promise. On paper they could have looked like variations on the same wine. Even aromatically they were close enough to be cousins—fresh fruit, a clear register, the familiar signals of a good year. But in the mouth they behaved like two philosophies.

One had been handled to satisfy a modern instinct: immediate charm, minimal resistance, a shape that would read as “light” and “easy” on first contact. The other carried more friction. More grip. But also more architecture. It didn’t merely taste of fruit; it felt like a place. And standing there with a pipette and two glasses, I realized the question isn’t whether we should chase lightness. The market is already asking for it. The real question is what we mean by lightness, and what we might lose if we interpret “less tannin” as “less identity.”

What tannin is—and why the conversation keeps returning to it

Tannin is the structural grammar of wine: a family of phenolic compounds that translate the raw material of grapes, and sometimes oak, into texture. We don’t smell it, but we experience it as grip, dryness, drag, bitterness, and the length of that tactile echo after we swallow. Tannins come primarily from grape skins and seeds, sometimes stems, and can be layered by wood. In many wines—most reds, some rosés, skin-contact whites—tannin is not decoration; it is a determinant of balance, colour stability, longevity, and the kind of pleasure that makes you reach for a second glass rather than a glass of water.

At the same time, tannin is not universal in its role. In delicate whites made without skin contact, the objective is often to minimise phenolics so bitterness doesn’t interrupt purity. This contrast matters because it clarifies the real point: tannin is not a virtue on its own. It is a tool whose value depends on how it carries a wine’s identity.

Select Images from Italianity. Photos by Craig Stewart.

The market demand is real—but the response is not obvious

We’re living through a stylistic shift that is easy to feel and hard to define. There is a growing appetite for wines that are transparent, lifted, and drinkable. Wines with depth, but not weight. Many professionals, especially in fast tasting contexts, also tend to taste increasingly with the nose. Aromatic clarity becomes the headline, and the mouth becomes an afterthought.

But the consumer doesn’t drink with a notebook. The consumer drinks with food, with conversation, with repetition. And when you drink that way, tannin stops being a technical subject and becomes an emotional one: it’s the difference between a wine that accompanies life and a wine that demands endurance. The market isn’t asking us to remove structure. It’s asking us to make structure pleasurable.

So here is the question I keep returning to, especially as an Italian: How do we use tannin management to meet this demand without stripping wines of their sense of place—without losing Italianità?

Because Italian wine, more than most, is built on variety and nuance. We have grapes where tannin is not just present; it is part of the dialect. To neutralise tannin indiscriminately is to remove accent. The wine may become easier, but it also becomes harder to recognize.

The danger is not modernity, it is sameness

The temptation is to answer the market with a single solution: “Make it softer.” But softness is not a style. It is a sensation. And sensations can be manufactured.

Italy cannot afford to confuse “elegance” with “generic.” If we shape every wine toward the same smooth silhouette, we may produce bottles that are immediately agreeable—and quietly anonymous. The most damaging form of homogenization is the one that feels like progress.

Italianity, for me, is not heaviness. It is not rusticity. It is not aggression. It is the choreography of balance. How fruit, acidity, and texture work together so that a wine belongs at the table and still carries the clarity of its origin. Tannin is one of the main ways that choreography becomes physical.

A method, not a manifesto

This is why I prefer to speak about method rather than ideology. I am not here to defend tannin as a tradition. I am here to defend meaning.

When we say “tannins,” we often speak as if the word describes one thing. It doesn’t. If we want to manage tannin without losing identity, we need to separate what we feel into components we can actually use.

Quantity: Volume and Density

There is volume, how intense the tannin sensation is. And there is density, how concentrated and tight that sensation feels. A wine can have modest volume and still feel tightly built; it can feel loud but not truly structured. This distinction matters because the market often reacts against volume when what it really resists is density that feels static and drying.

Quality: Structure and Form

Then there is structure, whether tannin is simple and linear or complex, with depth and dimension. And there is form, the tactile identity: silky, powdery, sandy, adhesive, abrasive, prickly, drying, raw. This is not poetic decoration. It is precision. If we can’t name the tannin, we can’t shape it without erasing it.

A wine doesn’t need to be tannic to be serious. But if it is tannic, it needs to be intelligible. The goal is not “less.” The goal is “right.”

Dynamics: Does It Move?

One of the great misunderstandings of tannin is that we treat it as static. In reality, the most important question may be: does it move? Some tannins arrive and lock the mouth; they amplify dryness and mute everything after. Others travel, hook, release, and return. A dynamic tannin can be present and still be pleasurable. A static tannin can be moderate and still be exhausting.

Time: Unripe, Ripe, Evolving

Finally, tannin has its own maturity arc. We often talk about ripeness only in fruit. But tannin can be unripe, ripe, or evolving. Those stages change how a wine reads as “fresh” or “hard,” “precise” or “severe.” Without that time dimension, we confuse youth with flaw and restraint with absence.

Where Management Becomes Culture

Yes, tannin can be managed in the vineyard and the cellar: selection, ripeness, extraction choices, pressing, oxygen, élevage. But for me, tannin management is also a cultural act. It is a choice about what kind of pleasure we believe in.

If you want wines that live at the table, then tannin must be shaped to support that life. That does not mean sanding a wine into neutrality. It means building a tannin that frames fruit without bitterness, that holds length without harshness, that keeps the wine legible as a place.

And it means remembering that service is part of respect: temperature, glass, time open. These are not cosmetic. They can reveal tannin’s movement, soften its edges, and return a wine to its intended posture.

The Future is Not Tannin-less. It is More Articulate.

The market is teaching us something useful: people want clarity. They want authenticity. They want wines that don’t perform.

But clarity is not achieved by subtraction alone. Sometimes clarity is achieved by better architecture. A wine with no resistance can be charming. But also forgettable. A wine with the right resistance can be both pleasurable and unforgettable, because it carries its origin in the mouth, not just in the story.

So when I stand between two tanks, tasting two possible futures, I don’t ask which one has less tannin. I ask which one will still taste like itself in five years, and which one will still taste like itself in the world.

That is the work: to meet the demand for drinkability without surrendering identity. To make wines that are lighter, yes, but not emptied. Wines that are precise, yes, but not anonymous.

In Italy, we have a word for that kind of precision with soul.

We call it Italianity.