#Italy

Feb 14

Ornellaia 2020: Proof That There's No Recipe

Same lighter weight bottle as its predecessor, but the 2020 is embossed at shoulder level with the Ornellaia logo. An invitation to taste... ‘Dear Joanna Simon, we look forward to seeing you online… to taste together Ornellaia 2020… Giovanni Geddes and Axel Heinz.’ So said the invitation. All I can say is I'm sure they can't have been looking forward to it as much as I was. I wasn’t disappointed. One of many things I like about Ornellaia is that they don’t need to trot out th

Nov 3, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Donnafugata La Bella Sedàra 2019, Sicilia, Italy

£14.99, Waitrose We've been hearing so much about the wines of Etna, not to mention Sicily's nimble, red-fruited Frappato, that it's easy to forget that the island's most widely planted red grape variety, and the one that dominates its only DOCG, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, is Nero d'Avola. Like Cerasuolo di Vittoria, La Bella Sedàra is a blend driven by Nero d'Avola, but instead of Frappato there are small amounts of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a few other varieties in

Sep 8, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Loved & Found Frappato 2021, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£7.99, Waitrose Everything about this nimble, light-bodied Sicilian red wine is cheery and crowd-pleasing, from the juicy fresh fruit – cherry vying with raspberry vying with strawberry – to the lick of pepper and herbs, the barely-there tannins, the refreshing freedom from oak and the soft, dry finish. Because it should be served lightly chilled, it’s the kind of red wine that seems perfect for uncomplicated summer drinking, but really it works at any time of the year. I can

Aug 11, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Michele Chiarlo Nivole Moscato d’Asti 2021, Italy

£16.17 (75cl), Great Wines Direct; £9.90–£11.50 (37.5cl), Vinvm, Oddbins, Noble Green Wines, The Whalley Wine Shop, Great Wines Direct Here’s a candidate for the title of perfect anytime wine for a heatwave. It's gently effervescent, feather-light, delicately sweet, as refreshing as summer rain and tastes of rose petals, fresh Muscat grapes and juicy apricots with a drizzle of stem ginger syrup. To cap it all, it’s only 5% alcohol and now comes in a full-size 75cl bottle, as

Jul 28, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Forza della Natura Orange Catarratto 2021, Terre Siciliane, Italy

£9.99, Waitrose If you've yet to fall for an orange wine, try this hazy gold, unfined and unfiltered organic example from Sicily. It's very much at the gentler end of the orange wine spectrum, with aromas of chamomile, fresh and dried apricot, orange peel and green tea and a textured palate with a refreshing, orangey, softly spicy flavour. It's very good value too. The vines grow high up in the Alcamo hills in northwest Sicily and the wine is made in a winery down in Marsala,

Jul 19, 2022

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2022 Rosé Round-up Part 1

Update, August 12 I've just added two more wines to this, so it's now 12 appetite-whetting rosés. The additions, Ramón Bilbao Rosado and Señorio de Sarría Viñedo Cinco are both Spanish, from the neighbouring regions of Rioja and Navarra, and both are based on Garnacha, but they couldn't be more different in style. I haven't yet found a UK stockist of the 2021 vintage of the Señorio de Sarría, but look out for it if you're in Spain. Scroll down. Ten appetite-whetting rosés rou

Jun 30, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Gini Soave Classico 2020, Veneto, Italy

£15.88, Justerini & Brooks Good Soave, which usually means Classico, often doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as one of the most food-friendly of dry whites and, equally, as a wine that has cellaring potential. You can blame it on cheap, bland Soaves that have tarnished the name over decades, but it doesn't help when people like me recommend the same handful of favourite producers time after time. But not this week. I’m delighted to put a long overdue spotlight on the Gi

Apr 14, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Adnams Barolo del Commune di Serralunga d'Alba 2015, Italy

£24.99, Adnams If you're wedded to Rioja or red Bordeaux for Easter, don't let me stop you, but if you want something different, yet still classic, let me put forward this eloquent Barolo from a top commune in a very good vintage – perfect for partnering rosemary-spiced roast lamb or a porcini dish. With its fragrance of dried cherries, red berries, dried herbs, sweet tobacco and a gentle, woody earth undertow, it's a Barolo in which the signature structure of Serralunga d'Al

Feb 24, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Colpasso Appassimento Nero d'Avola 2020 Sicilia, Italy

£7 on offer (normally £9), Morrisons This Sicilian red is new to the UK and a snip at the introductory price of £7 until 15 March. Even at £9 it's good value – dark, ripe and super-smooth with a tumble of black cherry, plum, kirsch and toasted vanilla flavours, gentle grip and a streak of Italianate agrodolce. It's made from hand-picked Nero d'Avola grapes, a proportion of which are dried, some of them left on the vines to dry, others dried on racks for about 15 days to lose

Feb 14, 2022

Ornellaia Ups the Cabernet Sauvignon in its Newly Released 2019, 'Il Vigore'

Each year the estate director of Ornellaia in Bolgheri chooses a single word to describe the character of the wine and reveals it at the wine’s launch. The word Axel Heinz has chosen for the 2019, revealed last week, is il vigore – strength, power, vigour. Given that the current zeitgeist around wine is more about elegance, freshness and even lightness, a word more readily associated with the powerful, strong wines of the Robert Parker era, might seem a brave choice, perhaps,

Jan 6, 2022

WINE OF THE WEEK: Santa Tresa Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2018, Sicily, Italy

£10.99–£14.89, Costco, The Wine Society, Ocado, Vintage Roots, Cheers, Amazon A delicious, distinctive and original red wine seems a positive way to start the new year. That Santa Tresa's organic Cerasuolo di Vittoria is outstandingly good value and a magician when it comes to matching food only adds to its lustre. Cerasuolo di Vittoria, Sicily's only DOCG (the top tier in Italy's wine classification system), is a small but varied region – topographically, geologically and cl

Dec 16, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: La Scelta di Sofia Sangiovese di Toscana Bianco 2020, Italy

£11.99/£9.99, Laithwaites, Averys This is as appealing as it is unusual: a white wine made from Sangiovese, Tuscany's principal red grape variety (and Italy's most widely planted). It's off-dry, bright and breezy with a whisp of smoke floating over quince, pear and green-apple fruit and a hint of Sangiovese's signature red-cherry in the refreshing, tangy finish. I said off-dry, but really it's more like medium dry; it's just that the acidity neatly off-sets the sweetness. The

Nov 25, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Riecine Chianti Classico 2019, Italy

£21/£18, Tanners Wines Riecine in Gaiole has always been one of my favourite Chianti estates and its wines have only improved since I first encountered them more than three decades ago with the founders of contemporary Riecine, John and Palmina Dunkley. The Chianti Classico is a lovely expression of pure Sangiovese: fluent and mellifluous, generous but elegant, concentrated but not heavy, long rather than broad. The family-owned estate is now run by winemaker Alessandro Campa

Oct 28, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Planeta l'Amistanza Fiano Grecanico 2020, DOC Sicilia, Italy

£10, Tesco A crowd-pleasing and pleasingly characterful unoaked dry white from deservedly fashionable Sicily, with peach, pear, herb and citrus flavours, a smooth, rounded texture and preserved-lemon and grapefruit-peel grip. Neither of the two grape varieties is native to Sicily – Fiano is from Campania and Grecanico is better known in the north as Garganega, the principal variety of Soave – but both are at home on the island and they make a good partnership, Fiano giving we

Oct 21, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Best Toscana 2019, Tuscany, Italy

£8.50/£10, Morrisons I had scheduled this Tuscan red for next week, but it's on offer at £8.50 until 2 November, so I've pulled it forward to allow more time for everyone to buy it at the lower price, although it's good value at the full (£10) price, should you miss out. Morrisons wine buyers are understandably proud of the wine, which they make in collaboration with, I quote, "one of the oldest and most highly regarded wine estates in Tuscany". They're tight-lipped about who

Aug 11, 2021

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2021 Rosé Roundup Part 2

As in part one, there's a cross-section of styles, grape varieties, origins and prices here and I'm going from high to low again, so that the more expensive rosés don't get overlooked (scroll down for the £8.25 Spanish rosado). There are some food suggestions along the way, but there isn't a wine here that couldn't be taken to the table, thanks largely to the more interesting textures we're seeing in so many rosés. Finally, a reminder that if you want a comprehensive review o

Aug 5, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: Rulendis Pinot Grigio 2019, Trentino Superiore, Italy

£14.50–£19.50, Aitken Wines, D Byrne, Sarah's Cellar, Corks & Cases, Kwoff, Blas Ar Fwyd, Chester Beer & Wine, Connolly's Wine Key to this wonderfully expressive Pinot Grigio are steeply sloping, sunny south/southeast facing vineyards lying at a lofty 550–600m, deep glacial soils and low yields from vines aged 15 to 30 years old. And key to the selection of these particular, extreme sites and soils is the PICA proprietary software owned by the CAVIT co-operative group in the

Jul 7, 2021

Prime Time for Pink: Summer 2021 Rosé Roundup Part 1

Now that winemakers all around the world treat rosé with as much respect as red and white wines, there are so many good rosés in such a diversity of styles that I'm dividing this year's round-up into two posts, with a cross section of styles, grape varieties and origins in each. And in a break with the past, I'm going from high to low in price this year because I don't want the more expensive pink wines (the first five in particular) to be missed. Scroll to the bottom and go

Jul 1, 2021

WINE OF THE WEEK: The Society's Exhibition Langhe Nebbiolo 2018, Piedmont, Italy

£13.95, The Wine Society If you're about to move on because you think that Nebbiolo isn't a summer wine, please give me a moment. It's true that the grape famous for Barolo and Barbaresco has a savoury, autumnal side to its flavour and goes well with lots of autumn foods - game, mushrooms, truffles – but that's only part of the story. It also has a wonderful fragrance – ethereal and haunting, as so often described – and in the Langhe hills it has notable elegance, as it does

Jun 30, 2021

Acidity – Something to be Celebrated Not Feared: the launch of Luce 2018

Two things came together for Frescobaldi's Luce in 2018, a model vintage without any of the extremes of the previous year and the opening in June of a purpose-built Tenuta Luce winery. The previous 25 vintages of Luce, a Sangiovese-Merlot blend from the south of Montalcino, originally conceived and created in partnership with the Mondavi family, had all been made in Frescobaldi's Castelgiocondo winery. I've written more about it and a retrospective tasting I did in November 2