Amarone – the grand wine made by the semi-dried (passito) grapes method within the Valpolicella region – is riding on the crest of a wave. It seems that we northern Europeans and Americans love its rich, dried fruit character and accessible structure. This can be seen from the enormous success of the related Ripasso style
State of the Amarone nation Read More »
Francesco and Luca Bracali have created something extraordinary in their restaurant just outside Massa Marittima.  Theirs is the last property in a very, very ordinary row of houses in Ghirlanda. The garden outside with its stylish planting hints that this is somewhere special but the real magic is inside.  In the kitchen of Francesco and the
Bracali – cuisine and wine Read More »
My birthday offered the chance to taste a range of vintages of Nebbiolo-based wines with some wine-loving friends. All the examples were from the Barolo or Barbaresco. How do these potentially majestic wines develop? When or do the tannins begin to soften? How easy or difficult is it to judge the vintage of a wine
Nebbiolo vintages Read More »
My recent post trumpeted my last-minute preparation for the MW tasting exams. I have now done the exams, the list of wines have been published but we are still some months off knowing the results. It is now time to reflect on the experience of things that go right in the exam and, sadly more interestingly,
Things that can go wrong … in the MW tasting exam Read More »
MW exams loom. What does the MW student do in the final week before re-sitting the tasting exam? Three papers of two hours and 15 minutes each, 36 wines in total to be discussed in detail, all served blind. The task is to discuss their origin, the varieties they are made from, how they were made,
Final week before MW exams Read More »
In June 2016 Andover Wine Friends were treated to a great line up of single varietal Syrah wines. It was fairly comprehensive (with apologies to N America) and showed what good wines are being made a range of price levels. We finished the evening with two older wines, one of them truly outstanding. I tasted
Grand Syrah tasting Read More »
Sergio Mottura knows how to tell a yarn. Â His account of how he took the unregarded Grechetto grape variety and turned into into a prize-winning, oak-aged, ageable wine is laced with equal proportions of commitment to the variety, ambition for the wine and a certain disregard for precision when it comes to technical terms. Â His
Eating out in Verona during Vinitaly is a bit of a challenge. 50,000 visitors descend on a small city already quite full of young tourists, all wanting to eat out, all wanting to drink something special. Our solution is to cross the Adige river which encloses the historic centre and walk to Veronetta, just beyond the
Drinking Quintarelli’s legendary Valpolicella in Verona Read More »
Celebrating the diversity of Chianti Classico: the 2015 London tasting As wine lovers, we can all have our preferences within the large region which is Tuscany. We might love the bright, cool, austerity of Chianti Rùfina or the richness of the Tuscan coast, but there is no getting away from the point that Chianti Classico
Chianti Classico diversity Read More »
When we casually open a bottle of wine on an evening or a weekend, we have little sense of the severely practical decisions which had to be made for our pleasure. Our biggest concern might be to twist the screw cap or to find the corkscrew. By contrast, there are dozens, even hundreds of decisions
Unglamourous harvest Read More »