Over the first weekend in April I was invited by one of our suppliers to accompany them to Vinitaly, a gigantic tasting event which takes place in Verona every year. It didn't take me long to say yes! What follows here is a brief account of my weekend, along with some videos of winemakers talking about their wines.
As I say, Vinitaly is basically a huge tasting event in Verona which pretty much every winemaker in Italy attends, usually on their own 'stand', exhibition-style. Believe me there were some pretty bizarre stands including one which looked like a big hedge. The event is multi-purpose, serving as an opportunity for winemakers to meet up with their worldwide agents, do business, present new wines and generally schmooze. It's also a great chance for people like me to taste the entire gamut of Italian styles in one (or 5) goes. They even let the public in on the Saturday and Sunday, so there are some very drunk people around on those days!
To give you an idea of the sheer size of the exhibition, this first picture here shows one of the avenues between the huge exhibition rooms, which stretch as far as the eye can see! There are 9 rooms, each about half the size of GMEX!
Day One
We spent most of day one (Thursday) tasting wines from the North East of Italy - Friuli, Alto Adige, Valpolicella etc. My top wines of the day were Allegrini's single vineyard 'La Poja', which smelt like it was going to be a big, bruising beast but turned out to be a supple, velvety wine. I also loved Franz Haas' Pinot Blanco, which I think I'll get some in of for you to try.
In the meantime, here's Andreo, the winemaker, talking about his Traminer Aromatico (known to you and I as Gewurztraminer), which you can buy HERE
And here's one just for Humphrey...
That evening we visited the winery (but unfortunately not the vineyards - it was heaving with rain) at Pieropan in Soave. Pieropan are traditionalists in the best sense of the word. They have some of the best vineyards in the zone and manage them beautifully. As well as a Soave Classico they have two single vineyard wines, Calvarino and La Rocca, both of which age particularly well (we tasted a 96 vintage of each wine and the Calvarino was especially good) and a Reciotto (sweet wine). They've also recently started making some Valpolicella with the questionable name of Ruberpan. Expensive but spectacular - watch out for some in Reserve soon!) This picture is their new cellar in Valpolicella with barrels of Amarone maturing nicely.
Day Two
A tannin overload today as we spent the whole day tasting wines from Tuscany. A real eye-opener though as I got to see the huge range of styles available. Stnad out wines today were Poggio Tondo Bianco, a blend of Malvasia, Trebbiano and Vermentino at a fantastic price, Fontodi Chianti Classico, Flacianello and Cepparello (of course), Capezzana's Barco Real we also had a fascinating vertical tasting of their estate wine back to 1983) and Isole e Olena Chardonnay, which was my stand out wine of the whole fair!
The afternoon and evening was taken up with an eye-opening visit to Allegrini in Fumane, Valpolicella.
We started with a tour of the La Grola and La Poja vineyards. Their at the top of the same hill, with La Poja at the top and La Grola around it. The fascinating thing here was the huge difference in the soils (and thus the wines) within a few yards. La Grola (first picture) has clay soils, wereas La Poja is very rocky and poor with white, chalky gravel (which looks a bit like snow in the second picture).
Here's our host, David Gleave MW explaining a bit more about the vineyards' unique position in translation from Allegrini's technical director. We were with a group of Americans at the time who didn't realise that David is an expert and were blown away by his translation!
Here's our host, David Gleave MW explaining a bit more about the vineyards' unique position in translation from Allegrini's technical director. We were with a group of Americans at the time who didn't realise that David is an expert and were blown away by his translation
After the vineyard visits, we headed to Villa della Torre (next to the Palazzo della Torre vineyard whose wines we've stocked for years) for a spectacular and very ostentatious dinner. I have never seen so much cured meat in my life! Not a bad looking house, is it?
Day Three
Back to Tuscany this morning to try some Brunellos and Avignonese from Montepulciano - their Vin Santo was spectacular, but at £160 a half bottle it should be. Perhaps more credit-crunch friendly was their Rosso Avignonese which was fresh and fantastic value at just under a tenner.
We continued the tasting in the south of Italy with wines from Sicily, Campania and Puglia. This is Mark Shannon (admitedly not the most Italian of winemakers, but his wife is Italian and they're both lovely) talking about his A Mano wines. The Primitivo has been a shop favourite for some time.
Day Four
The fair tasting on day four was all about Barolo really. It was gratifying to see that GD Vajra's wines were showing especially well (watch out for Giuseppe Vajra at a shop tasting very soon), but I awas also blown away by Conterno's Collonello.
We spent the afternoon and evening at Ca dei Frait on Lake Garda. These are some of our favourite Italian wines, and I know that many of you love the Chiaretto (Rose)
The first picture here is their winery and tasting room, set in an old monastery
And here's enough Pratto to keep me and Kate happy for a couple of weeks!
So, that's it. Day five contained a brief re-tasting of some favourite wines and then we headed to the airport for our journey home
If you want to see the full set of photos, just ask me, any chance to show them off is most welcome!
