Exciting Italian Red Wines from Marchesi Alfieri, Rocche Costamagna and Castello di Vicarello
Tasting notes with food pairings for seven notable wines from two estates in Piedmont and one in Tuscany
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Apr 30
Poggio di Sotto Brunello di Montalcino 2010–2019 – Three Vintages of the Century and Counting
To celebrate the international release of the Poggio di Sotto’s 2019 Brunello, winemaker Leonardo Berti hosted a vertical tasting in London
Mar 22, 2023
Doing Things the Daou Way in Paso Robles
Soul of a Lion, the flagship wine, named in memory of the Daou brothers' father It was hard to get a word in edgeways but, when I did, I...
Feb 14, 2023
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...
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...
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...
Mar 2, 2021
Riding His Luck in Brunello: Paolo Bianchini and the Rise of Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona
Paolo Bianchini, winemaker and former cycling pro, raising a glass of his Brunello di Montalcino at the tasting lunch in London in 2020...
Jan 5, 2021
Monterosola: Sitting Pretty Between Tuscany's Stars
Monterosola's stylishly labelled wines: two whites on the left, then four of the five reds I haven’t visited Monterosola in Tuscany, but...
Nov 24, 2020
A Taste of Tuscany: First of the 2020 Extra Virgin Olive Oils
Normally the Conti Contini Bonacossi family get through about 70 litres of their own organic extra virgin olive oil a year, but this year...
Oct 28, 2020
Sipping Siepi with the Best of 'Em
Gnocchi with girolles, chanterelles and black truffle paired with the 2011 vintage of Castello di Fonterutoli's super-Tuscan Siepi, at a...
Dec 19, 2019
WINE OF WEEK: Le Volte dell'Ornellaia 2016, Toscana, Italy
£19.99, Majestic; £20.99–£22.95, Hard to Find Wines, Armit, Caviste, Davy's This would be a wonderful bottle for the festive table if...
Mar 1, 2019
4 top Italian reds – from Tuscany, Trentino and Lombardy
Tasting notes on another four impressive Italian recent releases, following on from my Caiarossa blog The four wines – San Leonardo from...
Feb 15, 2019
Caiarossa – fusing complexity with approachability in Tuscany
The past six months have been particularly rich in tastings of top Tuscan wines. Two of them, Luce and Siepi, I’ve written about in...
Apr 4, 2018
White Beauty: a Tuscan debut
Wine exam question: Explain what is meant by white Sangiovese. When I first heard about a Sangiovese bianco, I didn’t know if we were...
Dec 12, 2017
Antinori Guado al Tasso 1998–2011 and Matarrochio 2007–2011
This article originally appeared in The World of Fine Wine, issue 51 A tasting billed as a UK first is tempting by any standard, but when...
Jul 2, 2016
Top, Top Tuscans: on the Masseto Merlot trail
Ornellaia and Masseto are close siblings but very different wines, as I discovered on a recent visit All planted to Merlot – the Masseto...
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