As the saying goes, if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain will have to come to Mohammed. The past weekend not only offered not only the ending of the English domestic football season with the showpiece of the FA Cup final, but also a Tuscan wine tasting in Hungerford, Berkshire and Decanter’s
A weekend in Italy: Capezzana Read More »
Giacosa Fratelli is rather different from most of the wineries we visited in our recent week in Piemonte. The winery is much bigger than most of the places we went to, a large, functional building coincidentally right next door to Bruno Giacosa, who, after Gaja, is probably the biggest name in Barbaresco. The business is
Giacosa Fratelli – perfume and austerity Read More »
Planning a week’s tasting in a region is a mixture of thorough preparation, chance meetings and recommendations, and sheer persistence. And there is the question of whether to visit wineries which you already know and whose wines are available in the UK as opposed to those you can only taste in situ. Our final day
Multi-faceted Vajra Read More »
This winery is appropriately enough near ‘three stars’ (Trestelle), itself a sort of midpoint between the three Barbaresco communes – Treiso, Neive and, of course, Barbaresco itself. But the three stars could also refer to the three daughters of the family or indeed to the excellent quality of the wine in relation to price. The
Ca’ del Baio – rapporto qualità prezzo buonissimo! Read More »
Having finished the posts from Vinitaly, we return to our week in the Langhe, home of the famous wines of Barbaresco and Barolo. The message at Bruno Rocca’s family winery in Barbaresco is clear. However much they are completing an impressive new winery under the current house, the heart of the matter is the land.
Bruno Rocca – above all the land 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 »
A second wine which suffers at the hands of its reputation is the Tuscan indigenous white, Vernaccia di San Gimignano. If I had a pound for every average bottle sold to tourists in this spectacular town under its medieval towers, I would be … well, you can finish the sentence. But it is potentially a
Vinitaly 3: a towering Vernaccia Read More »
As Janet and I had been in Piemonte but not got to the Gavi area, we made a bee-line for the home of the Cortese grape at Vinitaly 2010. This massive wine fair allows you to taste some of the real specialities (and peculiarities) of Italy and that includes some little known sparkling wines. Here
Vinitaly 2: mainly bubbles Read More »
Visiting Vinitaly, the annual five-day Italian wine fair in Verona, is in many ways a microcosm of the Italian wine scene – massive in scale, seemingly infinite in possibilities, by turns exhilarating and exasperating. The sheer scale of it is quite intimidating – 13 huge pavilions and 4200 producers. If the producers bring five wines
Vinitaly 1: the Italian wine city Read More »
This smallish family firm produces six wines, all red, with a total production from six hectares of 40,000 bottles a year. As Danilo explained, there are just three of them in the firm, so the upside is that you get to do a bit of everything. He had worked previously as a sommelier in the
Fiorenzo Nada – small is beautiful Read More »