Baudains: Wines from the Tuscan coast

The Tuscan coast stretches along the Tyrrhenian for roughly 275km; from the border with Liguria to the north, to that with Lazio in the south. Sharing the coastline are five provinces – Massa-Carrara, Livorno, Lucca, Pisa and Grosseto – and they all produce wine, although not necessarily on the coast itself.

After a visit to some wineries in Bolgheri, it’s possible to nip across the road for a dip in the sea, but this is not always the case elsewhere.

Although it is common to refer to the ‘vini della costa’, it would be more accurate to refer to the wines of the coastal provinces, since much of the production takes place some way inland.

From the medieval walls of Manciano in the hills of the Morellino DOCG, you can just about make out the sea on the horizon on a fine day, and the wine village of San Miniato in the province of Pisa is closer to Florence than the coast.

Scroll down for a selection of wines from the Tuscan coast

Wines from the Tuscan coast: Baudains’ top 20 picks

What follows is a selection of my favourite wines from the excellent Vini delle Coste event, held every year in Lucca, supplemented by a couple of notes from the Vinitaly trade show in Verona. To give the selection a sense of place, and at the cost of excluding some outstanding bottles which are released under the generic Toscana IGT, I have included only wines from the DOC/Gs of the coastal provinces, or those which use the easily identifiable Costa Toscana label.