Cadgal and Moscato d’Asti DOCG Moscato d’Asti DOCG covers a vast area of some 10,000 ha in Piemonte, spreading across the historic regions of Langhe, Monferrato and Roero. It produces and sells about 36 million bottles yearly, 90% of which are exports. That’s a lot of wine, yet it remains less well-known in the UK, dwarfed by the ubiquitous Prosecco1. …
Maculan – Three Red Wines from Breganze in the Veneto
Maculan – Three Red Wines from Breganze in the Veneto The Veneto in North Eastern Italy is one of the powerhouses of Italian wine. After all, this region has been making wine for three or more millennia. Today, it contains many famous appellations, such as Valpolicella and Soave, and even more famous wines, such as Amarone, Prosecco and Pinot Grigio. …
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Rossese Bianco from Josetta Saffirio is WOTY 2024
Rossese Bianco from Josetta Saffirio is WOTY 2024 Wine Alchemy’s Wine of the Year (WOTY) 2024 goes to Sara Vezza in Piemonte, Italy. This is for the rare white wine Josetta Saffirio, Rossese Bianco, Langhe DOC, 2022. As is usual, the Wine Alchemy WOTY is inspirational. Exceptional taste is a given. But, in addition, the winning wine must be genuinely …
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Greatest Hits – A Case for Christmas 2024
Greatest Hits – A Case for Christmas 2024 This year, I’m ringing the changes for the Case for Christmas 2024 article. This time, it’s a Greatest Hits package. This features a dozen wines selected from all my previous annual Christmas wine recommendations. They are twelve wines that stand the test of time and fully deserve highlighting again. Such a listicle …
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Le Monde Wine Tasting Dinner in Cumbria
Le Monde Wine Tasting Dinner in Cumbria At a recently held Le Monde wine-tasting dinner in Cumbria, we imagined ourselves in Italy, specifically the area of Friuli known as Friuli Grave. This territory is sandwiched between the Alps to the north, with Venice and the Adriatic coast to the south. It’s an enormous flat plain created over millennia by alluvial …
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Limoncello? How to make it yourself
Limoncello? How to make it yourself Shout out if you don’t like Limoncello. *silence* I thought so. Limoncello Limoncello is an Italian lemon digestivo, produced in Italy wherever lemons grow. Its origins are probably around the Amalfi Coast of Campania, south of Napoli. There, the large oval and sweet Sorrento lemon called Femminello Santa Teresa has a zest unusually high …
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Pisa – Stay and Explore at Badia di Morrona
Pisa – Stay and Explore at Badia di Morrona The Badia di Morrona winery near Pisa has been featured previously on this website for some excellent red wines. The first article concentrated on I Sodi del Paretaio, two Chianti DOCG wines. Then, the second piece featured their flagship wine, VignaAlta. This latter red wine is a Tuscan gem, the best …
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Gravner New Solutions Announcement
Gravner New Solutions Announcement In Part 2 of my previous three-part article about Joško Gravner, published over the summer of 2024, I mentioned that Gravner was experimenting with new maturation technologies to complement his use of Qvevri amphorae. However, a promise was not to reveal these commercially sensitive details until Gravner’s formal announcement. Hence, today’s press release officially heralds these …
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Lugana DOC – Jewel of Lake Garda
Lugana DOC – Jewel of Lake Garda Regular readers will know of my love for Lake Garda and its multifarious wines. Garda is Italy’s largest lake, handily placed at the crossroads of European travel. Some of the wine appellations surrounding Garda feature elsewhere on these pages, each with its own identity and story. Now, it’s the turn of Lugana. This …
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Kellerai Kaltern – Schiava Specialists
Kellerai Kaltern – Schiava Specialists Kellerai Kaltern (Cantina Caldaro) is the largest cooperative winery in northern Italy’s Alto Adige (Südtirol) region. It’s in Kaltern an der Weinstraβe (Caldaro sulla strada di vino). Its long name shows its proximity to Kalterersee (Lago di Caldaro), the region’s largest lake. The name also appends the regional wine route, which winds 150 km through …
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