Eat Amatriciana for Amatrice First Published on this website 25 August 2016 – TEN YEARS AGO By now, many of us will have seen the devastation caused by the earthquake in Central Italy this week. The epicentre was close to the town of Amatrice. It’s famous for the Amatriciana pasta sauce central to Roman cuisine. To add insult to injury, Amatrice …
Wine Wit and Wisdom – A Brief Interlude
Wine Wit and Wisdom – A Brief Interlude Here in the UK, it’s the height of silly season, the annual summer period where the mass media turn to frivolous stories, or even more frivolous than usual, perhaps. The usual reason offered got his is because Parliament isn’t sitting and neither are the Law Courts – both sources of daily news. …
Piper Hole Dairy Goat Farm – Organic Goat Cheese
Piper Hole Dairy Goat Farm – Organic Goat Cheese It was shortly after moving to Cumbria when I first came across Piper Hole Dairy Goat Farm. That was in a book published in 2022, written by Amy Bateman, called Forty Farms. This award-winning book has since become a best-seller and the subject of a number of exhibitions in the UK. …
Port-ologist: Crafting Port Wine Cocktails – Book Review
Port-ologist: Crafting Port Wine Cocktails – Book Review The Port-ologist is the pen name of Dutch writer and Port-lover Ruud Scholten. He is also the founder of a website which covers Port in depth, called PRTwine.com. On February 26th this year he published a book (in English) called Crafting Port Wine Cocktails1. This book demonstrates how Port, one of the …
A Stella Supernova
A Stella Supernova Regular readers of these pages will know of my fascination with Italy’s Collio DOC. In particular, Tenuta Stella, a winery near Dolegna del Collio, has become a personal favourite. I first discovered their wines when visiting the Collio in 2023, with two previous articles written about some of their wines. You can find the first one here, …
Ottavianello by Vallone in Puglia
Ottavianello by Vallone in Puglia Ottavianello is true rarity. A red grape variety mostly grown in the super-obscure Ostuni DOC, on the Salento peninsula of Puglia. DNA profiling shows it’s the French Cinsault 1, widely grown in Provence and Languedoc. There’s no doubt though that it’s gone native since arriving in Puglia in the nineteenth century. It’s a distinct biotype. …
Pretty in Pink: Rosé wines for summer drinking
Pretty in Pink: Rosé wines for summer drinking Rosé wines were thought irredeemably naff by past generations of wine drinkers. Only in this century have rosé wines come back into fashion after years of neglect. Now we can’t get enough of them, especially on sunny summer days. Indeed, rosé wines are so in vogue they are part of the basket …
La Farra – Truly Superior Prosecco
La Farra – Truly Superior Prosecco La Farra is a winery established by the Nardi family in 1997 at Farra di Soligo, in the heart of Prosecco Superiore Conegliano-Valdobbiadene DOCG. This DOCG is the larger of the two high status appellations responsible for the best Prosecco sparkling wine, as suggested by the addition of the name Superiore.1 This is a …
Sacello – Chianti Classico from Arillo in Terrabianca
Sacello – Chianti Classico from Arillo in Terrabianca Arillo in Terrabianca is located in the Radda commune of Chianti Classico in Tuscany. This article is devoted to just one of their wines, namely Sacello, a Chianti Classico DOCG made only with Sangiovese, grown at Tenuta Terrabianca. The estate was originally a medieval farm. Winegrowing began in the 1950s. It was …
Carlo Petrini – Be More Carlo
Carlo Petrini – Be More Carlo On May 21 2026, in the town of Bra (Piemonte, Italy, where he was born), Carlo Petrini died at the age of 76. Who was Carlo Petrini? Carlo Petrini was an Italian writer and activist. He founded what became the Slow Food movement in 1986 and was President until 2022. Subsequently, he also established …