Innholdsfortegnelse for Decanter Italy 2019 i Decanter Italy

AGAINST A BACKDROP of alarm and increasing global urgency over climate change, Carlo Petrini, the pioneering founder of Slow Food, is determined that each of us can still make a difference. Petrini is uniquely placed to hold such an opinion: his movement – for that’s what it is – has spread from being an all-Italian association of regional food and wine lovers in the 1980s and ’90s to its current position as a global hub for food enthusiasts, activists and farmers in more than 160 countries. His grassroots Terra Madre network, begun in 2004, is at the centre of this support for sustainable indigenous agriculture. Community champion Slow Food-Terra Madre today lobbies against transgenic crops and monoculture, fights for the rights of small-scale farmers, food communities and fishing people, and…

In a sign of the times, Barbera’s rising star has led to the creation of a tightly controlled denominazione dedicated to the variety. The Nizza DOCG could perhaps be seen as the culmination of Giacomo Bologna’s early work, seeking the perfect place for Barbera in the Asti province. ‘Nizza is the grand cru of Barbera,’ says Stefano Chiarlo, winemaker at his father’s eponymous estate Michele Chiarlo. ‘In the future, it will be the third Piedmont appellation, with Barolo and Barbaresco, for ageworthy reds.’ At their best, the wines made under the Nizza banner are powerful. Despite the variety’s lack of tannin, these wines have the stuffing and structure to age for more than a decade. That’s likely down to tight boundaries and stringent regulations to qualify for the designation. High-density…

1 Elio Altare, Vigna Bricco Cerretta, Riserva 2012 97 £103-£120 Justerini & Brooks, Millésima Altare magnificently interprets the Serralunga cru in this modern classic, which spent 24 months in barrique (20% new). There is exhilarating progression in this wine and a never-ending finish. The tannins are tight and there are menthol notes, anise and liquorice. Cellarworthy. Drink 2019-2040 Alc 14.5% Vietti, Lazzarito 2014 97 £190 Asset Wines, Bibendum, Exel A majestic cru (Serralunga), with 30 months in barriques and large barrels. Offers unmistakable personality in a ‘third way’ Barolo. Aromatic, tight-knit fruit, forest floor, tobacco and liquorice. Tannins in a state of grace. Assured longevity. Drink 2019-2040 Alc 14% 2 E Pira & Figli, Chiara Boschis, Mosconi 2014 96 £57 Asset Wines, Enotria&Coe Chiara Boschis’ take on Monforte’s Wagnerian terroir…

1 Cantina Terlano, Vorberg Riserva Pinot Bianco, Alto Adige 2015 95 £29.50-£32.99 Widely available via UK agent Astrum Wine Cellars Archetypal Alto Adige Pinot Bianco that has been partially fermented in large barrels. Luscious ripe pear with hints of kiwi, pineapple and quince jelly. Opulent texture that brings balance for further ageing. Drink 2022-2033 Alcohol 14% Le Vigne di Zamò, Tullio Zamò, Colli Orientali, Friuli-Venezia Giulia 2015 95 N/A UK www.levignedizamo.wine Extravagant and voluptuous style from partial barrel fermentation with plenty of ageing on the fine lees and in bottle. Balanced, long, poised and surprisingly graceful. Drink 2020-2027 Alc 14% Nals Margreid, Sirmian, Alto Adige 2017 95 £24.99 Define Food & Wine, Noel Young, Vindependents, WoodWinters Stony, salty nose, notes of lime and quince jelly; juicy and ginger pears on…

ERNEST HEMINGWAY KNEW exactly what to expect from his glass of Valpolicella. In his 1950 novel Across the River and into the Trees, his mouthpiece, the cantankerous Colonel Cantwell, refers to his favourite drop as ‘the light, dry red wine which was as friendly as the house of your brother’. His readers might struggle to find an example to fit that description today: Valpolicella is a wine style in real crisis. Production has plummeted and the style Hemingway loved is being squeezed flat between two monoliths: Ripasso and Amarone. The boom in the popularity of Amarone has caused an even more stratospheric rise for Ripasso: the more Amarone is made, the more lees become available and the greater the quantity of Valpolicella being refermented on those lees. A second, more…

The Collalto family have been connected with viticulture for over a thousand years. It was, in fact 958 AD when King Berengario II granted the territory of Lovadina with its pastures, woods and vines, of course, to Rambaldo I. Ever since then, in an uninterrupted line for the last 1060 years, Rambaldo’s heirs have looked after a territory which remains almost unchanged to this day. In 2007, Princess Isabella Collalto de Croÿ took over personal control of the company and its vineyards, dedicating the same love and attention to them as her ancestors. It’s a unique story, and a long history, and over the years Collalto has played a leading role in winemaking history, too. Thanks to Count Antonio Rambaldo, this was the first place the Austrian red grape, Wildbacher,…

1 Silvano Follador, Metodo Classico, Superiore di Cartizze Brut Nature 2016 96 £13.95 Slurp Complex and inviting on the nose: spring flowers, white peach, a hint of crème fraîche and bread crust. Crisply elegant, long, light but beautifully balanced. Pristine lime and lemon finish. Pure class. Drink 2019-2020 Alcohol 11.5% 2 Bortolomiol, Grande Cuvée del Fondatore, Motus Vitae, Superiore Brut Nature 2016 95 £19.55 Tannico Understated but enticingly fresh; orange blossom, rose petal, acacia. Light and airy but deep and long – concentrated fruit and touches of almonds and honey. Zippy finish. Drink 2019-2020 Alc 12% 3 Frozza, Rive di Colbertaldo, Superiore Brut 2017 95 £18.30 Stannary St Wine Co Fresh, delicate but complex nose with jasmine, apricot, wild herbs and hints of sweet biscuit. Super-fine texture and a finish…

TUSCANY’S RENAISSANCE ARTISTS depicted every nuance of Chianti Classico’s landscape – the subtle changes in light and shade across its vineyards, olive groves and towns. They would be stunned that Chianti Classico bottles are so randomly ordered on contemporary wine merchants’ shelves. Unlike Burgundy, for example, Chianti Classico wine labels cannot display the name of their towns of origin. Imagine Leonardo da Vinci asking Michaelangelo if he had painted a particular Tuscan townscape and Michaelangelo replying: ‘Yeah, I did. But regrettably the law forbids me from telling you exactly which town it was.’ There are nine towns in the Chianti Classico area and in 2015, wine-growers in one of those towns – Panzano – challenged the status quo by adding the name ‘Panzano’ to the front label of their wines.…

CONSIDERING ITS GLOBAL fame, Brunello di Montalcino is a relatively new star in the world of wine. The region remained an inside tip for almost a century until lifestylers and wealthy investors discovered its wines and unspoiled landscape in the 1970s. The new entrants propelled Brunello, the local name for the Sangiovese grape, to international stardom and Montalcino’s young incumbents are set to refine their wines further with an emphasis on improving the health of the vineyards for future generations. Andrea & Francesca Ciacci Tenuta di Sesta The Ciacci family has an historic role in the Brunello di Montalcino story: in 1966, the same year that Brunello became a prized member of the new DOC family in Italy, Giuseppe Ciacci became one of a handful of producers making and bottling…

The name Ruffino is synonymous with the world’s most beloved Tuscan wines. Founded in Tuscany in 1877 by cousins Ilario and Leopoldo Ruffino, the company quickly became a benchmark for the region through the use of strict quality standards and meticulous technical research in an ideal location. The founders believed their wines should reflect Tuscan lifestyle, handing down the values of the land and its people through the simple pleasures of family life and warm, shared experiences. Ruffino wines won important medals quickly; Gold Medals at Milan in 1881 and Bordeaux in 1895, for example. The Duke of Aosta was a prominent admirer at the end of the 19th century and selected the Chianti Stravecchio for his noble table. In turn, Ruffino dedicated a special cuvée of its Chianti Classico,…

1 Pio Cesare, Fides, Barbera d’Alba 2015 94 £40 Laytons, Whole Foods Market Ideal ripeness, good acidity, moderate tannins and beautiful spicy notes of coriander and cardamom, with blackberry, black plum and grilled meat notes. Subtle oak provides an overall harmony and superb varietal character. Drink 2019-2026 Alcohol 14.5% 2 Braida, Bricco dell’Uccellone, Barbera d’Asti 2015 93 £55 Sommelier’s Choice A rather ripe example, characteristic of this vintage. A little flashy and opulent, yet well balanced with powerful aromatics reminiscent of black plum, molasses, clove and tar. Fine, medium-weight tannins. Drink 2019-2026 Alc 15% Michele Chiarlo, La Court, Barbera d’Asti Superiore Nizza 2013 92 £36.95-£45 Asset Wines, Exel, Great Wines Direct, Hallgarten & Novum Expressive and flavourful with aromas of red and black cherry, coffee bean and a hint of…

It’s a special place. High up in the Italy’s Alto Adige region, the Isarco Valley benefits from a heritage that is particularly suited to white wine making and a landscape and climate redolent of more southerly climes. Here, where glaciers caress the gentle hills of the Mediterranean-like landscape, grapes of extraordinary quality reach maturity on sunny hillsides at altitudes from 500 to 1,000 metres a.s.l. to make extraordinarily fine wines. The roots of the vines, by reaching deep into the soil, soak up the minerals and nourishing substances present in this wonderful soil, to give the wines they produce their typical taste profile and aromas. The light and gravelly soils, the many days of sunlight and judiciously spaced rainfall provide the ideal conditions for the cultivation of white grapes. This…

Lambrusco may be the best known of Emilia Romagna’s effervescent offerings, but there is a multitude of other varieties and areas that also produce delightful frizzante and spumante wines. Bubbles are the norm for many of the traditional wines in Colli Piacentini, the DOP tucked in the far northwestern corner of Emilia Romagna. The heady Malvasia di Candia Aromatica often plays a leading role in white frizzante wines and some of its most successful producers, including Massimiliano Croci, Montesissa Emilio and Podere Pradarolo, continue the area’s ancient tradition of macerating white varieties on skins before a spontaneous second fermentation in the bottle. These wines have charm, an attractive rusticity and often fairly substantial tannins. Colli Piacentini is also home to reds, both still and sparkling, made under the Gutturnio DOP.…

The majestic Tenuta di Biserno estate was discovered by Marchese Lodovico Antinori back in 1995 while he was still at the helm of Tenuta di Ornellaia. Lodovico moved on from Ornellaia in 2001 and he started Tenuta di Biserno jointly with his brother Piero. This was in fact the first time that the two brothers, from one of the world’s oldest wine dynasties, had actually worked together. Now, Lodovico is the heart and soul of Tenuta di Biserno and the estate is under his guidance. Tenuta di Biserno is situated in Bibbona, a little-known village of the Alta-Maremma, which borders on the famous Bolgheri region. The estate is only a few kilometres from the Tyrrhenian Sea and benefits from its cooling sea breezes. The soil is very complex, full of…

Environmental sustainability is becoming an increasingly popular topic in the wine industry. Climate change and consumers’ high expectation require wineries to focus not just on producing high quality wines, but accomplishing this while safeguarding the environment. This is a challenge that Vignaioli del Morellino di Scansano, a winery founded in 1972 in the heart of Maremma, in the southern part of Tuscany, has taken on with great care. With a good 600 hectares of vineyards and around 150 members, the winery has a prominent role in the local community and in representing the Morellino di Scansano DOCG appellation in Italy and abroad. “By focusing on environmental sustainability we take care of our consumers too…” Earlier this year they were the first winery in Europe to receive the PEF certificate, the…

IN THE THROWAWAY consumer culture of the modern world, Sagrantino is an anomaly. This thick-skinned, extremely tannic black grape is difficult to tame in both vineyard and winery. It needs five years or more in bottle to come around, but when it does, it’s a wine of great character and personality with an enviable capacity for long ageing. It is worth the wait. Sagrantino grows almost exclusively around the town of Montefalco, Umbria. The region is best known for its white Orvieto wines and is called the Cuore Verde (‘green heart’) of Italy, due to its central location and its very green landscape. Having no sea access, Umbria has always been a little hidden. It is quieter and less touristy than its more famous neighbours, Tuscany to the north and…

It’s a new winery, operative only in the last decade, but it is Sardinia’s most awarded, recognised by Decanter first, and featuring in the lists chosen by Robert Parker and James Suckling, too. It all started with a: Gold Medal (Decanter World Wine Awards competition) for Maìa, a Vermentino di Gallura Superiore DOCG the first vintage the company ever made! Numerous Decanter medals followed, but this year, 2018, was the year of greatest success (so far): Platinum Medal (Decanter Asia Wine Awards competition) for Spèra, Vermentino di Gallura DOCG another one of the company’s three Vermentino di Gallura wines. So what makes the company special? First of all, of course, it’s the terroir. Siddùra is located in the heart of the Gallura region of Sardinia near the beautiful village of…

BARBERA IS THE perfect match for simple foods at Piedmont trattoria or osteria, but it’s not just the restaurant-going locals that have overlooked this grape – leading vintners in the region have regularly disparaged it too. Early in his career, Luca Currado, winemaker at Vietti, remembers his father telling him that Barbera was a good way of honing his skills, as few would even notice if he spoiled what was considered a lowly table wine. ‘Work on Barbera, so you can ruin your first wine,’ he quipped, only half-joking. But times are changing: producers in several districts in the region now treat Barbera with a great deal more reverence, as they craft ‘serious’ versions of this wine worthy of cellaring. Piedmont’s most planted variety remains the ideal partner for a…

SPECTACULAR VINEYARDS SHOULD produce equally special wines, and in the Alto Adige, where some of Europe’s highest vines cling to precipitous Alpine slopes, the formidable list of contenders includes Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Gewürztraminer and Riesling. Yet the relatively unsung Pinot Bianco outperforms them all. Until the 1980s, Italy’s northernmost region produced mainly cheap bulk wine, much of it red, for its traditional markets of Austria and Germany. During the quality revolution that followed, Pinot Bianco was to shake off the shackles of its long-held role as workhouse white and soar to local hero status. ‘Before the 1980s,’ says Hans Terzer, winemaker at the acclaimed St Michael-Eppan cooperative, ‘Pinot Bianco and Chardonnay weren’t recognised as separate varieties and they were both known as Pinot: Verde and Giallo. But even then growers knew…

1 Ca’ la Bionda, CasalVegri, Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Veneto 2015 96 £18-£21 Bat and Bottle, Top Selection Made using fresh grapes only. Spicy red cherry nose with notes of mint and fennel. An exquisite palate that’s lean, lithe and graceful with deep, peppery and smoky-toned red fruit characters sustained by precise acidity. Stunning. Drink 2023-2030 Alcohol 14% 1 Tedeschi, Maternigo, Valpolicella Superiore, Veneto 2015 95 £24.99 John E Fells Using extra-ripe grapes from the Impervio vineyard high above Mezzane, this is a wine with real swagger. Glorious and beautifully balanced mix of freshand dried-fruit aromas and flavours. Exceptional. Drink 2020-2027 Alc 15% Monte Dall’Ora, San Giorgio, Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Veneto 2015 94 £16.49 Beacon Wines, Les Caves de Pyrene Fresh grapes only. It’s hard to believe this is their first…

ALL TOO OFTEN overlooked in favour of their august Chianti Classico neighbour, the Chianti Colli Fiorentini and Chianti Rùfina regions boast centuries-old estates making authentic and approachable wines, close to the Tuscan capital. The Florence fringe offers dreamy views and country-chic accommodation while never losing sight of the city’s cultural happenings and myriad attractions. Take in the family farms and multinational flagship wineries, ancient castles and noble villas, while staying conveniently close to suburbia. Fattoria Lavacchio For some of the most bucolic vineyard views near Florence, Fattoria Lavacchio’s recently restored working windmill marks your destination. At the organic estate’s shop, Bottega del Mulino, you can purchase wines and exquisite extra virgin olive oil, artisan cheeses and freshly baked bread; or book a table at the adjacent Mulino a Vento restaurant…

SARDINIA IS OFTEN mistaken for a tropical island or confused with Sicily,’ sighs viticulturist Salvatore Mura at his family’s estate in Gallura. ‘Sometimes it’s missing from Italian maps altogether.’ Mercifully, Sardinia’s stunning beaches attract tourists from around the globe, though few explore inland beyond her turquoise waters. They are missing out. Inhabited since Paleolithic times, Sardinia is a treasure trove of mysterious artefacts and traditions. It is also the second largest island in the Mediterranean. ‘It’s like a continent,’ says Daniela Pinna, owner of Tenute Olbios. Shaped by winds from every direction and created over several eras, ‘Sardinia’s soil and climate are completely different between the north, centre and south’, she explains. This diverse terroir, coupled with a long history of occupation by various cultures, yields a rich viticultural landscape.…

The pace in Sardinia is slow. Give yourself time to get around, especially if you’re venturing off the beaten track: marvellous rewards lay at the end of those long and winding roads. If flying into Cagliari, wander up the city lanes that snake to the top of the fortress to complete the day with a breathtaking sunset over the harbour and an elegant dinner al fresco at Sarti del Gusto (www.isartidelgusto.it). Stock up on wine at Enoteca Cagliaritana (www.enotecacagliaritana.it) before heading southeast to taste Sulcis Carignano or relax on the remote beaches of the Costa Verde. The Catalan-flavoured city of Alghero makes a great base to explore the awe-inspiring Grotto di Nettuno, the white sandy La Pelosa beach and the wineries around Sássari. Be sure to take in the colourful…