One of the great pleasures of wine exploration is stumbling upon something new. Every corner of Italy is filled with rare forgotten grapes that wine makers are nurturing and coddling. It’s becoming easier to find ancient grapes and when you stumble upon these gems, you’ll be in for a ‘wow’ moment… and that’s special. And that’s Gaglioppo, grown all over… Read more »
April takes our Italian Food, Wine and Travel group on a virtual excursion to Campania in southwestern Italy where rare wine grapes are abundant. An area where there is no shortage of stunning coastline and no lack of chaotic action in the capital city Naples, it oozes archeological and ancient sites such as Pompeii, Herculaneum and Paestum. The next time… Read more »
Brachetto d’Acqui sparkling frizzante wine- bright, foamy and fizzy, perfect for aperitivo or a lazy afternoon, I’d invite it to my couch for a movie and dessert too.
Barbera fans take note! Meet smaller producer Susanna Galandrino and La Gironda winery in Piedmont Monferrato for organic Barbera exploration.
A year ago March, Mark and I dropped in on Raw Wine London. When I told him about attending a session on Gravner wines he happily joined me. This is where we briefly met Mateja Gravner and tasted wines that marked our memory. The entire movement, raw and natural wines, is rather obscure and includes orange wine, an extended skin… Read more »
Italian wine is diverse. Its cultures, food, landscapes and weather are too. You can observe this diversity in the twenty unique wine regions of Italy. Big and complicated, yes, but here is your intro to Italian wine made simple.
Nero Buono is a grape native to the Lazio wine region that’s within easy reach of Rome. Marco Carpineti makes organic wines there including a Nero Buono we tasted.
Lazio might fly under the Tuscany radar now but the area rich with history, lush with hillsides, and satisfying palates with its wines is making a statement with Cesanese.
Klaus Lentsch makes the most amazing Lagrein. For those who don’t know him, he’s an Italian winemaker and businessman in the Alto Adige region of northern Italy. And if you’ve never heard of Lagrein, it’s a grape native to this area, where 97% of it grows. Where is Alto Adige? It’s where the Southern Alps descend becoming the Dolomites, and… Read more »
Stefano Petrini’s grandparents were farmers in a small mountain community rich with history in Italy’s Abruzzo region. Paleolithic cave paintings and Roman ruins were fuel for young, energetic boys to explore. And explore he and his brother did. But it was the contact with nature and vineyards that set their current stage: producing organic wine in Abruzzo’s Pescara and Chieti… Read more »