Writing about the wines of Piemonte, Italy and France
The wines of Le Marche/the Marches
My favourite wines – for a special occasion, celebrating the end of MW exams
My favourite wines Read More »
Last night’s tasting with Andover Wine Friends reviewed Italy’s sparkling wines – the everyday bottles (basically tank-fermented) and the special occasion bottles (traditional method with classic varieties). Here is the line up for tank fermented: Passerina (example of a local variety, here from the Marche), Lambrusco, top quality Prosecco Superiore and delightful, inexpensive Asti.
Monday’s nights can be special nights. This last Monday Janet and I joined eight others in a ‘Michelin madness’ dinner at which we all provided the wines while enjoying the very good cooking – and arresting artwork – at La Trompette in Chiswick. Five fine courses, four groups of wines – Champagne, whites, reds and
Five courses, four groups of wines at La Trompette Read More »
Taking the temperature of Italian wine: VinoVIP July 2017 Recently I was a guest of the Italian wine magazine, Civiltà del Bere (English website here), at VinoVIP 2017, held in spectacular Cortina d’Ampezzo, high in the Dolomites. You can see my pictures of Cortina here. I contributed to a session on Communicating Complexity (of
Taking the temperature of Italian wine Read More »
The much anticipated, much postponed BBC (‘bring a bottle club’) on the theme of sparkling wine finally took place in September, having been chosen as a theme for birthdays in July and August. It proved very instructive with one prejudice being confirmed and a couple of others weakened. In terms of blind tasting it does
Champagne still sparkles Read More »
September’s BBC2 was a postponed celebration of a birthday – and the custom is that the birthday girl gets to choose the theme which in this case was Sangiovese. The likelihood, therefore, was there would be quite a lot of Tuscan, or at least, central Italian wines. The questions for a blind tasting might be:
Savoury Sangiovese Read More »
Italy is blessed with a very large number of local grape varieties. One of the standard guides lists more than 500, others speak of thousands. More importantly, it has a significant number of great varieties – however much it’s fun to have something local, you still want it to make good wine or better. This
Italian half-marathon Read More »
Sangiovese, the most important red grape of Tuscany, is famously variable. It produces both thin sour wine (though today there is really no excuse for this) and some of Italy’s most magnificent, structured and age-worthy reds. The May 2010 edition of Decanter magazine gives the Brunello riserva of 2004 from Biondi-Santi an amazing 20/20 score
Vinitaly 4: high altitude Sangiovese Read More »