Masnaghetti wine maps are created by Alessandro Masnaghetti, known as Italy’s Mr Map Man. But his contribution is actually a complete toolkit for interpreting vineyards. It is indeed true that his detailed maps of vineyards are the most fantastic resource for wine lovers and students. Whether in your home or in the field, you can
In Monferrato’s famous five, I started to express my excitement about the Grignolino variety – pale, aromatic and tannic. By the way, does that remind you of a famous variety from Piemonte? Today I have tasted some examples from two wineries that are part of the Monferace initiative. This is a group of producers, mostly
My family has strong European connections. My mother was an Austrian refugee to the UK before World War 2, my father loved Austria and Germany and of course, I have visited Italy and France regularly and Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal occasionally in the last 15 years. So like many of the 48% who voted
There are very few things I like more than a good co-operative wine producer. I love the romance of the small grape growers of a region pooling their harvests, sharing experience and expertise. Sensibly, they entrust the complex tasks of making, promoting and selling the wine to a company set up for the common good,
This post completes my earlier survey of five local Monferrato grape varieties, Monferrato’s famous five. Freisa is one of Piemonte’s historic varieties, now not much grown but with one claim to fame. In 2004, Anna Schneider and her team at the University of Turin established that it has a parent-offspring relationship with the undisputed top
Every wine region needs its standard-bearers. They come in various shapes and sizes, Krug in Champagne, DRC in Burgundy, Penfold’s in South Australia. However, what they share in common is being widely regarded as among the very best of a region’s producers. And, vitally, they carry the reputation of a whole region with them at
The most common complaint from those who know Piemonte well is that attention is overwhelmingly given, often exclusively given, to one grape variety, Nebbiolo, and one sub-region, the Langhe. The latter does contain the two great denominations of Barolo and Barbaresco but there is so, so much more to Piemonte. It has such great vinous
From humble beginnings I started this website as a humble blog on WordPress, back in 2009. I gradually built it up with the core feature of reports on wine regions which I had visited, personally. These were mostly in Italy and France, to which have been added in the last five years, Australia, New Zealand
It is over two months since my last post and time has flown. We have been in the peculiar UK version of Covid-19 lockdown (‘we would appreciate it so much if you would please stay indoors etc’), work at the WSET has been busy, this website is getting a major update and, of course, there
With the Covid-19 crisis in full swing, we are all becoming expert at video conferencing. The new nightmare scenario would be to have simultaneous calls on Zoom, Microsoft Teams and a family call on Whatsapp! But this week I did have a conversation of over an hour with Andrea Sottimano via Zoom. The wifi in
