Wine and “Disobedience”: Why It’s the Watchword of the Winemag Guide 2027

After “Authenticity“, chosen in 2026, the watchword of the Winemag Guide 2027 is “Disobedience”. The one that, in our view, can ferry Italian wine out of the mire left by years of “fat years”: seasons in which success too often ended up confirming every choice, ossifying the sector and slowing its progress and capacity for vision.

The selections of the best wines and best Italian wineries of the year also start from this reflection. When everything sells, questioning seems superfluous. Formulas are repeated, hierarchies are consolidated. Price growth is mistaken for value growth. Then the market changes and those certainties become a burden.

The risk is continuing to ask consumers to understand wine, without asking how much wine is still willing to understand them. To disobey means to question what we have learned to consider inevitable.

That a winery’s most important wine must be the most concentrated. That longevity is measured by the effort required to face a young glass. That elegance and ease of drinking must occupy the lowest rungs of the range. That to justify a price you need more wood, more weight. More words.

The disobedience that interests us requires competence and responsibility. Knowing a tradition well enough to be able to choose how to continue it. Listening to a vineyard even when it suggests a different path from the one indicated by the market.

Accepting that a wine’s identity can also be expressed through restraint. Giving value to the ability to accompany a meal, to invite a second glass, to remain in memory without having to occupy the entire scene. These qualities too deserve a place among a winery’s highest ambitions.

It is a demand we also address to ourselves, to those who taste, judge and assign scores. Are we ready to recognize greatness in a wine that does not use the signals to which we are accustomed? To reward precision without confusing it with simplicity? To give the same attention to a celebrated territory and to a designation that rarely enters important conversations?

A guide must take on this responsibility. Verify reputations, leave room for surprises, explain its choices. The name on the label cannot replace judgment. And a score must tell the story of the wine tasted, without becoming a lifetime achievement award or an income to be renewed.

The Winemag Guide 2027 was born with this spirit. It seeks wines capable of leaving a mark and wineries that have something to say, through their work and results, even outside the glass. It recognizes the value of experience and that of an unexpected choice. It looks to the ability to preserve an identity by making it live in the present.

Authenticity remains the starting point. Disobedience is the courage to carry it through to its consequences. Even when it means changing your mind, giving up a formula that has worked. Or recognizing that the next path for Italian wine might begin precisely where we stopped looking for it.