About The Drinks Menu

TheDrinksMenu aims to be the premier online drinks website in the UK. We want our customers to feel a level of commitment and service that is second to none. Our dedication to customer satisfaction is based upon knowledge that TheDrinksMenu don't just promise the best, we deliver the best!
We have an excellent choice of Specialist Beers, Fine Wines, Exclusive Champagnes and Unique Spirits, including brand leaders as well as many exclusive ranges.
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History

The Drinks Menu was established as an online business supplying the corporate market in the Yorkshire region. But as we grew and began offering more products to our clients it was decided that we could also offer this same great service to the home/public market. This has grown and grown. The site you see now is the latest investment in our business to be able to offer our customers the best online shopping experience available.
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Testimonials

Hey Richard.

Just to say thanks for your delivery today. Great communication, value and very pleased with the products. Will be placing an order again!

Thanks again,
James.

Hi Mate,

Just to let you know the wine arrived just now! Cheers for that, great service. I will let you know what he thinks of the wine!

Cheers, Chris. Magnolia Properties.

Hi,
Received the items 8:30 this morning... Thank you - great service..!
Regards, Scott Blackwell, Vacon Drives UK Ltd

I just wanted to let you know the peroni arrived to today. Thank you so much, very impressed with the speed & how well the bottles were packed. Thank you once again & we will definitely be back to order with you again.
Kind regards. Anne Barfield

Hi Richard
The beers arrived safely and were very much appreciated. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I look forward to receiving your vouchers, you can be assured of another order!
Best regards, Anne

Many thanks for the excellent service. The speed and professionalism was a real breath of fresh air.
Thank you. Nick Bland.

We were let down at the last minute by our catering company who were also supplying the drinks for our Christmas do. Up stepped Richard at the Drinksmenu and delivered everything he promised. His selection of wines were perfect and the evening was saved and enjoyed by all who attended. We will work closely with Richard and the Drinks Menu in the future.
R. Cade.

The Drinks Menu sourced and delivered mixed cases of wines, bottles of Spirits and cases of beers to our customers all over the UK. All were with happy customers within 48hrs. Great service, great prices and good luck for the future.
Cheers. Tom Bland.

Grape Varieties

International Grapes

CABERNET SAUVIGNON

(Blackcurrant, cedar, high tannin)
Synonymous with serious red wine capable of ageing into subtle splendour. For this reason Cabernet Sauvignon is also the best-travelled red wine variety, but since it is a relatively late-ripener it is viable only in warmish climates. It will not necessarily ripen fully every year even in its homeland the Medoc/Graves. But when it does ripen, the colour, flavour, and tannins packed into the thick skins of its tiny dark blue berries can be remarkable. With careful winemaking and barrel ageing it can produce some of the longest-living and most intriguing reds of all. In Bordeaux and increasingly elsewhere it is blended with Merlot and Cabernet Franc, although it can make delicious unblended wine if grown somewhere as warm as Chile or the northern coastal districts of California, its second home.

CHARDONNAY

(Broad, inoffensive - unless over-oaked)
The white burgundy grape, but so much more versatile than Pinot Noir. Chardonnay can be grown and ripened without difficulty almost everywhere except at the extremes of the wine world (its early budding can put it at risk of spring frost damage). It has become the world's most popular white wine grape, perhaps because (unlike Riesling for example) it does not have a particularly strong flavour of its own. But it routinely takes on whatever character the winemaker desires by submitting happily to the champagne process; to cool fermentation and fruit preservation to make something like Chablis; or to the fashionable recipe of malolactic fermentation, lees stirring, and barrel maturation (that can result in a certain sameness); and even to sweet wine production.

MERLOT

(Plump and plumy)
Cabernet Sauvignon's traditional slightly paler, fleshier blending partner, especially in Bordeaux where its earlier ripening makes Merlot so much easier to grow that it is the most planted grape there. Wherever it is planted it is easier to ripen than Cabernet Sauvignon in cooler vintages and more alcoholic in warmer ones. It bigger berries and thinner skins mean generally less tannic, more opulent wines that can be enjoyed sooner. Merlot also has an independent existence as a varietal, particularly in the US where it is regarded as easier to drink than Cabernet, and in northeast Italy where it is easier to ripen. It reaches its apogee in Pomerol where it can result in voluptuous velvety essences. It is common in Chile where it has been confused with the old Bordeaux variety Carmenere.

PINOT NOIR

(Cherry, raspberry, violets, mid-ruby hue)
This is the most elusive grape. It is relatively early ripening and extremely sensitive to terroir. Planted somewhere hot Pinot Noir will ripen too fast and fail to develop any of the many fascinating flavour compounds its relatively thin skins can harbour. Its perfect place on earth is the Cote d'Or in Burgundy where, if the clones, vine-growing, and winemaking techniques are right, it can convey intricate differences of terroir like no other variety. So haunting are great red burgundy's charms that growers everywhere try to emulate them, but so far only New Zealand, Oregon, and cooler corners of California have had much luck. It is rarely blended for still wine, but with Chardonnay and its cousin Pinot Meunier it is part of the standard recipe for champagne and other top-quality sparkling wine.

RIESLING

(Aromatic, delicate, racy, expressive)
Riesling is to white wine what Cabernet Sauvignon is to red; it can make entirely different wines in different places and can age magnificently. Mispronounced (it's "Reessling"), underrated and underpriced for most of the late 20th Century, Riesling was long confused with other, lesser grapes, which incorporated the word in their name, such as Welschrieling/Laski Rizling. The wine tends to be powerfully scented, reflecting minerals, flowers, lime and honey depending on its provenance and sweetness (it makes great botrytized wines in its homeland Germany). With age it can take on kerosene-like compounds. Riesling is still the noblest grape of Germany and Alsace and is increasingly admired in Australia, despite the fact that its wines are unfashionably low in alcohol and devoid of oak.

SYRAH/SHIRAZ

(Black pepper, dark chocolate, notable colour and tannin)
This grape has taken on a new lease of life as growers experiment with it in the relatively narrow bands of climate that will ripen it but not too fast. The northern Rhome Valley is its home, where it most famously makes great, dark, long-lives Hermitage and Cote Rotie (where it was traditionally perfumed with a little Viognier). Syrah is now planted all over southern France where it is commonly used in blends. It tastes quite different in Australia where, called Shiraz, it is the country's most planted red grape, making dense, potent wines in places as warm as Barossa, though it can still have a hint of black pepper in the cooler reaches of Victoria. Today growers all over the world are experimenting with this easy-to-love grape, whose wines, however ripe, always have a savoury kick at the end.

SAUVIGNON BLANC

(Grass, green fruits, razor-sharp, rarely oaked)
Piercingly aromatic, extremely refreshing and, best drunk relatively young. Sauvignon Blanc's original home in France in the Loire, particularly in and around Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume, where it can vary considerably according to the vintage. Grown in too warm a climate it can lose its characteristic aroma and acidity and can be too heavy in much of California and Australia. Once the vine's tendency to excessive vigour was tamed by canopy management, it has done particularly well in New Zealand, notably in Marlborough, as well as cooler parts of South Africa where it is sometimes blended with Chardonnay. In Bordeaux it is traditionally blended with Semillon for both dry wines (often oaked, a style known as Fume Blanc in the New World) and sweet.

GEWURZTRAMINER

(Lychees, roses, heady, high alcohol, deep-coloured)
Gewurztraminer is a devil to spell - and often loses its Umlaut - but a dream to recognize. Its distinctive aroma, so strong that it earned the grape the prefix gewirz, or "spices", in German, can easily be tiring, especially if combined with high residual sugar in the wine. But the best examples of Gewurztraminer from Alsace, where it is most revered, have an undertow of body and nerve, as well as a savoury finish, which stops them from cloying. Sufficient acidity is the key. Some fine examples have also emerged from New Zealand, cooler parts of Australia, Chile, British Columbia and Oregon. This is the Musque (i.e. perfumed), red-skinned mutation of Traminer, first noted in the northern Alto Adige near Tramin (Terlano) 1,000 years ago, and probably the Jura's Savagnin.

SEMILLON

(Figs, citrus, full-bodied, rich)
Semillon is included here on the strength of the exceptional quality of the sweet wine produced from it, particularly in Sauternes and Barsac where it is traditionally blended 4:1 with Sauvignon Blanc, together with a little Muscadelle. Its relatively thin skins make Semillon highly susceptible to the botrytis mould that can in the right conditions concentrate the grapes miraculously. It is the most planted white grape in Bordeaux where it is also responsible for some fine, oaked dry wines, especially in Graves. Australia's Hunter Valley also had a special affinity with it, making long-lived, complex, mineral-scented dry wines from early picked grapes. It can also do well in Washington State, and has been widely planted in South America and South Africa.


Regional Grapes

CABERNET FRANC

(Leafily aromatic)
The less intense, softer progenitor of Cabernet Sauvignon. Because it ripens earlier, it is widely planted in the Loire and on the cooler, damper soils of St. Emilion, where it is often blended with Merlot. In the Medoc/Graves it is planted as an insurance against Cabernet Sauvignon's failure to ripen. Much more resistant to cold winters than Merlot, it can make appetizing wines in New Zealand, Long Island and Wahington. In northeast Italy it can taste positively grassy, and reaches its silky apogee in Chinon, Bourgueil, Saumur-Champigny, and Anjou-Villages.

NEBBIOLO

(Tar, roses, violets, orange with black tints)
Piemonte's answer to Pinot Noir. In B arolo and Barbaresco it responds to every nuance of aspect and elevation. It will ripen only on the most favoured of sites. When fully ripe it is exceptionally high in tannins, acids and pigments, but long cask and bottle ageing can result in hauntingly seductive wines. Nebbiolo makes a wide range of other, usually lesser, wines in northwest Italy (In Valtellina and Gattinara for example), but like Pinot Noir it has shown a reluctance to travel. Some Americans and Australians keep trying to prove otherwise.

TEMPRANILLO

(Tobacco leaves, spice, leather)
Spain's most famous grape. As Tinto Fino or Tinto del Pais it provides the backbone of Ribera del Duero's lively, deep-flavoured reds. In Rioja it is blended with Garnacha. In Catalunya it is known as Ull de lebre, in Valdepenas Cencibel. In Navarra it is often blended with Bordeaux grapes. As Tinta Roriz it has long been used for port and is increasingly respected as a table wine grape in Portugal, where in the Alentejo it is known as Arogones. Its early budding makes it vulnerable to spring frosts; its think skins to rot, but it is increasingly valued internationally for fine wine.

TOURIGA NACIONAL

(Tannic, fireworks, occasionally porty)
Portugal's greatest treasure, although just one of a wide range of distinctive and interesting grapes grown in the Douro Valley to make port, such as the unrelated Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca, and Tinto Cao. It is increasingly bottled as a varietal wine throughout Portugal, and is an increasingly important ingredient in Dao. It is also likely to be planted much more widely throughout the wine world for it is by no means short of class and personality. Touriga Nacional is always extremely high in tannin, alcohol and colour, not least because it is naturally unproductive.

GRENACHE NOIR

(Pale, sweet, ripe, useful for rose)
Is widely planted round the Mediterranean and is the most planted grape of the Southern rhome, where it is often blended with Mourvedre, Syrah and Cinsault. It is also widely grown in soussillon where, with Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris, its high alcohol levels are useful for the region's famous Vins Doux Naturels. As Garnacha it is the most planted red grape in Spain. As Cannonau in Corsica, and as Grenache in California or Australia, it is not revered unless the vines are very old.

ZINFANDEL

(Warm berry flavours, alcohol, sweetness)
Zinfandel was regarded as California's own grape for a century, until it was established that, as Primivito, it was known on the heel of Italy at least as early as the 18th century. The vine ripens unevenly but some berries build almost unparalleled sugars so that Zin, as it is known in the US, can be as strong as 16 or even 17% alcohol. It is more commonly grown to produce enormous crops of much less intense wine in California's Central Valley, much of it stripped of colour, flavoured with aromatic Muscat or Rieseling, and sold as (pale pink) White Zinfandel.

MALBEC

(Spicy and rich in Argentina, gamey in Cahors)
Malbec is a conundrum. It has long been a blending grape all over southwest France, including Bordeaux but the dominant grape only in Cahors where, known as Auxerrois or Cot, it has typically made rustic, sometimes, rather animal wines suitable for only medium-term ageing. Emigres took it to Argentina, where in Mendoza it was so clearly at home that it became the country's most planted red grape and makes gloriously velvety, concentrated, lively wines, high in alcohol and extract. It thrives particularly in Mendoza's Lujan de Cuyo district.

VIOGNIER

(Heady, full-bodied, hawthorn blossom, apricots)
Fashionable, distinctive variety that has now travelled from its home in Codrieu, northern Rhone, to virtually all corners of the wine world. Unless fully ripe its distinctively seductive aroma does not develop, which means that most memorable examples are relatively alcoholic; the trick is to keep the acidity too. California has managed in numerous examples. Best drunk young, it is increasingly blended with the other Rhone white grapes: nervy but aromatic Roussanne and Big, almondy Marsanne - especially in Southern France.

PINOT GRIS

(Full, golden, smoky, pungent)

This increasingly fashionable grape has its power base in Alsace where, with Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Muscat, it is regarded as a noble grape variety, responsible for some of the region's most powerful, if quite soft wines. This pink-skinned mutation of Pinot Noir is a cousin of Chardonnay. In Italy it is known as Pinot Grigio and can now produce some equally characterful dry wines, even if the majority is still tart and vapid. Growers elsewhere dither between calling it Gris or Grigio without much significance for style. It is Oregon's white wine speciality.

MOURVEDRE

(Animal, blackberries, alcoholic, tannic)
This is a grape that needs considerable sunshine to ripen and is by far the most important grape in Bandol, Provence's most noble wine, although it is prone to oxidation. Throughout southern France it adds flesh to Grenache and Syrah blends in particular. In Spain as Monastrell, it is the country's second most planted red grape and associated more with heft than quality. It was known, and somewhat overlooked, as Mataro in both California and Australia until being renamed Mourvedre and enjoying a new lease of life with glamorously Gallic associations.

SANGIOVESE

(Savoury, lively, variable: from prunes to farmyard)
Italy's most planted grape, in its many forms, and particularly common in Central Italy, most gloriously in Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. The least noble clones, overproduced, make light, tart red wine - oceans of it in Emilia-Romagna. The traditional Chianti recipe diminished it with the white grape Trebbiano as well as the local Canaiolo and a bit of deep Colorino. Today Tuscany's many ambitious producers coax maximum colour and flavour from it. It is increasingly planted elsewhere.

MUSCAT BLANC

(Grapey, relatively simple, often sweet)
This is the finest sort of Muscat and has small berries (petits grains in French) which are round rather than oval like those of the less noble Muscat of Alexandria (Gordo Blanco or Lexia in Australia where it is g rown for the table). As Moscato Bianco in Italy, the finer Muscat is responsible for Asti and many fine, light fizzes. It also makes great sweet wines in southern France and Greece. Spain's Moscatel is usually Muscat of Alexandria, Australia's strong, sweet, sticky Muscats are made from a dark-skinned version, Brown Muscat. Muscat Ottonel is different and lighter.

CHENIN BLANC

(Extremely versatile, honey and damp straw)
Chenin Blanc is the grape of the middle Loire sandwiched between the Melon de Bourgogne of Muscadet and the Sauvignon Blanc of the upper Loire. Much misunderstood, it makes very ordinary off-dry wine in both California and South Africa where it is widely planted, but in the Loire it can make nervy, age-worthy, characterful wines of all stages of sweetness. Botrytized Vouvray is one of the great, long-lives, sweet white wines of the world. Chenin Blanc also makes lightly honeyed, dry still wines and some characterful sparkling Saumur and Vouvray.

PINOT BLANC

(Lively, light Chardonnay-like)
Lighter-skinned mutation of Pinot Noir which has often been confused with its cousin Chardonnay in the vineyard, especially in Italy where it is called Pinot Bianco. It is the everyday, inoffensive grape of Alsace, related to Auxerrois and sometimes called Clevner. It can make substantial wines, including wonderfully rich Trockenbeerenauslesen, in Austria as Weissburgunder. It is also popular in southern Germany for its full body. The grape is relatively low in acidity and flavour compounds so Pinot Blanc is generally drunk young.

Italian Wine Regions

Umbria

At last Umbria, like the Tuscan Coast is seething with winemaking ambition. Its isolation and the absence of any large cities or useful ports kept the region and its wines in obscurity for generations, even though its wine traditions are as ancient as any.

Orvieto was an important Etruscan city. The magnificent cellars cut in the volcanic rock of its dramatic hilltop 3,000 years ago are unique examples of prehistoric technology, specifically designed for long, cool fermentation, the object being sweet wine. Classic Orvieto was amabile, as sweet as possible, depending on the season and the amount of botrytis conjured by autumn mists in the vineyards. Alas for Orvieto, the 1960's and 1970's fashion for dry white wines turned it into yet another Central Italian blend of Trebbiano (at times called Procanico here) and Malvasia, and the fortunes of this supposed leader of Umbrian wine foundered.

Enter, Dr Giorgio Lungarotti who, on his estate at Torgiano near Perugia was the first in modern times to prove that Umbria could make great red wine. His Rubesco Riserva 1975, 1979 and 1983 broke new ground for the reputation of Central Italy's only landlocked region. His daughter continues to keep Torgiano on the map.

Umbria's climate varies enormously from cooler-than-Chianti-highland weather in the north around Lake Trasimeno to a Mediterranean climate at Montefalco and Terni in the south.

It was in the southwest at Antinori's Castello della Sala estate that the next significant development in Umbrian wine history was to take place. The estate was initially designed to make Orvieto but from the mid-1980's on, winemaker Renzo Cotarella continued to produce a stunning range of non-traditional white wines. A barrel-fermented Chardonnay was perhaps only to be expected, but Cervaro della Sala has almost from the start had a purity and singularity to establish it as one of Italy's greatest white wines. A botrytized Muffato from a range of international varieties plus Grechetto showed other possibilities, while an unusually refined, if highly variable, Pinot Nero (Noir) indicated others.

The next breakthrough established an entirely new DOCG, Sagrantino di Mentefalco inspired by the thrilling 1991 and 1993 reds made from the local, dazzlingly fruity (and also mightily tannic) Sagrantino grape around the town of Montefalco by Arnaldo Caprai, Colpetrone was soon to follow.

Umbria was well on its way and today makes a truly Italian farrago of reds and whites from grapes both local and imported, including Orvieto of some real interest once more. No pattern matching grapes and places have yet emerged, but the role of consultant oenologists, the demigods of the modern Italian wine scene, will continue to be vital. The Cotarella brothers have been making particularly successful raids into Umbria from their Falesco winemaking base at Montefiascone over the b order in Latium and, like other producers, are more likely to label their wines IGT Umbria than with a local DOC such as Colli Perugini, Colli del Trasimeno, Colli Martani (especially good for Grechetto) or Colli Amerini. Umbria has arrived!

Located in the very heart of Italy, Umbria is a delight of green hills and fertile valleys. Its ancient towns include Perugia and Assisi, and the Etruscans are known to have produced wine there over two thousand years ago, but until recently the only well known wine was Orvieto and that area stretches into Latium.

Barberani - Azienda Agricola
The vineyards of the estate are a few kilometres away from Orvieto. they are situated on the hills above Lake Corbara in the most ancient and highly regarded wine producing area of Orvieto, known as the "classic" zone. The estate covers a total of 80 hectares, 50 of which have been cultivated with specialised vineyards. The hilly location of the vines combined with the chalky clay soil, the micro-climate from the lake below contribute to the making of such high quality premium wines.

Tuscan Coast

It is debatable whether any winegrower since "Chianti" Ricasoli has made such an impact on Italian wine as the founder of Sassicaia, the little vineyard near the Tuscan coast that upset the whole DOC system. Sassicaia was totally non-traditional, unmistakenly superb - and at the time classed as a lowly Vino da Tavola, quite simply because there were no other vineyards here, and therefore no DOC regulations.

The Marchese Incisa della Rochetta chose a stony hectare of the big San Guido estate in the 1940's to plant Cabernet. He hankered after the Medoc. The nearest vineyards were miles away. Bolgheri was neglected peach orchards and abandoned strawberry fields.

The estate lies six miles (10km) from the sea on the first slopes of the graphically named Colline Metallifere, a range rich in minerals that forms an amphitheatre with a marvellously benign climate. Vines flower in May and grapes ripen in late September, before autumn rains end the long, dry spring and summer. When the Marchese's early wines started to lose their tannin they revealed flavours not seen in Italy before.

His nephews, Piero and Lodovico Antinori, tasted the wines. Piero talked to Professor Peynaud in Bordeaux. Antinori started to bottle and market Sassicaia with the 1968 vintage. By the mid 70's it was world famous. Then, in the 1980's Lodovico Antinori began planting a selection of plots with varied soils on his property. Ornellaia, with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and less successfully, Sauvignon Blanc. The best plots have turned out to be the higher, stonier plantings, together with a patch of clay whose Merlot goes into his Masseto.

Meanwhile his brother Piero upgraded the rosato from his Belvedere estate and in 1990 produced a Cabernet/Merlot blend called Guado al Tasso from a plot on higher ground. The soil turns sandier here, the wine lighter. This may well be the westernmost site for great reds.

New wine estates have proliferated - many have yet to establish their reputations. (Tenuta del Terriccio to the north of the area with its minty Lupicaia Bordeaux blend was an early hit) Gaja of Barbaresco established Ca'Marcanda. Ruffino of Chianti is here too. Cabernet and some Merlot are the usual choices.

The DOC Bolgheri is evolving fast. (Sassicaia has its down DOC within it). All other wines must be blends (of Cabernet, Merlot or Sangiovese for reds) which means, for example, that the all-Sangiovese Cavaliere and all-Merlot Masseto are sold as IGTs.

If Bolgheri has shown itself perfect Cabernet territory, Merlot may be the grape for the wine zone , the recent Val di Cornia DOC around Suverto. The soils are certainly notably higher in clay than those of Bolgheri. He owner of Bellavista of Franciacorta has Merlot as the focus of his Petra estate. Lodovico Antinori has bought land here. So has the San Luigi estate in Piombino right on what might today be called Tuscany's gold coast. The Monteregio di Massa Marittima DOC just south of the dynamic Suverto subzone is probably next.

Veneto

Italy's northeast corner is the country's one region where aromatic, sharply etched white wines dominate both image and production. The Veneto has two great wine centres. Verona and Conegliano, 40 miles (65km) north of Venice, site of Italy's principal viticultural research station. Northern Veneto runs into the dolomites. And the region of Conegliano-Valdobbiadene already has a faintly Alpine aspect, Its local speciality the white Prosecco grape, is rather charmless as a still wine, but is very good base material for the much admires spunamte of the region. Prosecco is thus the local fizz of Venice, and its Superior form, Cartizze from Valdobbiadene, is one of Italy's best in the brisk, light bodied manner, its slight sweetness providing perfect cover for Prosecco's inherent bitterness.

Still within the Veneto, the wide plain of the Piave, heavily planted with vines, produces some fresh dry white Verduzzo (an important grape of the northeast) and is a useful source of Cabernet and Merlot of fair to substantial quality. Eastwards from Venice, the great Bordeaux grapes make the running for red wine. Mass produced as they usually area they can taste very green; on such estates as Venegazzu and Ornella Molon, in the province of Treviso, they have been married into truly claret-like blends. An indigenous red grape, Raboso, helps to define Venetian taste in red wine, which, as in white, is definitely for the austere and dry.

Fruili-Venezia Giulia

Most of the Cabernet planted in Friuli was long thought to be Cabernet Franc (sometimes spelt Frank but some has more recently been discovered to be the old Bordeaux variety Carmenere (misidentified as Merlot in Chile). When over-cropped as it still is routinely, Camenere can take on a distinctly animal note.

On the whole the "Cabernet" is heartiest to the west of the region, especially in Lison-Pramaggiore (where the Merlot can be a little dry and heartless for the grape that makes Pomerol). Going east, early ripening Merlot seems better suited to the large crops and coolish climate of this part of Italy. Merlot dominates the DOC's Grave del Friuli and Isonzo. The coastal areas with their flat vineyards tend to make less concentrated wines from these grapes than is made from more limited hillside plantations in the Colli Orientali del Friuli, although some Isonzo producers on particularly well-drained vineyards are now managing to make wines every bit as go.

Became a part of Italy in 1919 after the Treaty of St. Germain. It is a tiny, mountainous region with the Carnic Alps serving as the frontier with Austria to the North, the Julian Alps and the Gulf of Triests to the South East, and the Croatian border to the East. the mild climate produces only 1.3% of Italy's wine but about 45% is at DOC level and today, Friuli wines have a reputation for excellence.

Fantinel
Loris, Gianfranco and Luciano Fantinel - three brothers who share a passionate love of land and wine. It was their father Paron Mario, who founded the Fantinel Company and his sons are following in his footsteps with loving pride and dedication.

Borgo Tesis from Fantinel
The vineyards of Brogo Tesis, a model of viticulture, extended for 100 hectares over the gravely soils of the Grave del Friuli.

Conti Attems, Lucinico
Conti Attems wines are world famous and are grown in the renowned Collio DOC region, bordered by the Alps and the Adriatic Sea. This location gives a temperature microclimate, and the samdstone and marl soil is perfect for pinot Grigio and sauvignon Blanc grapes, together with native Tocai Friulano and Ribolla Gialla varieties. Following 900 years of winemaking, Attems joined Marchesi de'Frescobaldi forming a legacy that creates wines with great tradition, quality and personality.

Montepulciano

Montepulciano's neighbours to the east, across an intervening enclave of "mere" Chianti, have ancient pretensions of their own embodied in their DOC, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Montepulciano is a hill town of great charm surrounded by vineyards planted with a mixture of Sangiovese, called here Prugnolo Gentile, with the other standard Chianti ingredients. Some producers admit to ignoring the legal requirement to blend grapes other than Sangiovese in their best wines. Others value the colour and structure of Colorino grapes in the blend. This "noble wine", elevated with Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello di Montalcino to DOCG status in 1980, tends to taste like a sort of halfway house between Chianti Classico and Brunello, with the fragrance of the former and the body of the latter.

Until quite recently winemaking skills have been more uneven here than in Montalcino, and the wines, still weighed down by a heavy charge of tannins, can lack the sheer dramatic intensity of the best Brunello.

As in Montalcino, minimum ageing periods have been reduced (to just one year in wood for both normal and Riserva versions), and Rossi di Montepulciano can be surprisingly soft. The barrique invasion continues h ere too, smoothing the wine's hard edges, which in some cases is no bad thing.

Vineyard altitudes here tend to vary less than in Montalcino and most of the best sites are at between 820 and 1,475 ft (250 and 450m). Soils are generally sandier and the wines more accessible, although the pervading warmth of south Tuscany leaves no shortage of ripeness.

Led by the stylish house of Avignonesi, wine producers here have dallied with various Super-tuscan formulae, including the vibrantly oaked white Marzocco. The Sangiovese, and Merlot grapes grown on Antinori's substantial holdings are Montepulciano are used for blending rather than selling as Vino Nobile.

Yet perhaps Montepulciano's greatest triumph is its Vin Santo, the forgotten luxury of many parts of Italy, Tuscany above all. It is orange coloured, smoky-scented, extraordinarily sweet, intense and persistent, aged four years in tiny flat caratelli (barrels), traditionally (but no longer) under the roof tiles of a Renaissance palazzo.


Abruzzo, east of the Apennines, appears to many to be a remote corner of Italy, perhaps because of its inaccessibility and the rolling mountains that stretch out to the Adriatic. This region comprises of two-thirds mountains, one-third hills and offers highly favourable natural conditions for the growing of grapevines.

Cantine Zaccagnini
Ciccio Zaccagnini has been producing wine for over thirty years and none more famous than the wines we list. Consistent quality and unique presentation are Ciccio's trademark.

Casal Bordino Soc Co-op
The co-operative Madonna del Miracoli of Casalbordino was founded in 1960, thanks to the commitment of 42 small grape producers. The winery now includes 650 other local wine-producers, who cultivate 1400 hectares of vineyards.

Azienda Agricola, Dino Illuminati
In the late 1890's, an impassioned master in the art of wine-making, Nicola Illuninati, began the activity of wine growing. In the province of Teramo an area located between the deep blue of the Adriatic sea and the gorgeous mountains of the Gran Sasso in the Northern Abruzzo, Nicola Illuminati set up the winery called "Fattoria Nico". This passion for winemaking was handed down, to his grandson Dino Illuminati who continues on the cultural tradition of making good wine, employing the same skilled craftmanship of his illustrious grandfather and fusing traditional and modern methods so that every bottle is a "bottle of Reserve".

Montalcino

The larges of the outlying areas of the vast Chianti region is the Colli Senesi, the Siena Hills. Forty miles (65km) south of Siena they roll in stately waves, woodland-topped with here and there as a landmark a village, a rough stone castle or bare tufa cliff.

Until the 1970's little was heard of this part of Tuscany. It was purely local knowledge that the climate here was more equable than farther north - the sea is only 30 miles (50km) away, via Grosseto - and that summers are regularly warmer and extremely dry. Monte Amiata, rising to 5,600 ft (1,700m) just to the south, collects the summer storms that come from that direction.

At the same time as Ricasoli was devising an ideal formula for Chianti, in an enclave in the Colli Senesi, around the little town of Montalcino, Clemente Santi and his kin (now called Biondi-Santi) were establishing at their estate, Il Greppo, a model for what they labelled Brunello di Montalcino. This dense, muscular wine was made only from the Sangiovese grape, known locally as Brunello, without the blending customary in Chianti. Odd bottles of ancient vintages of this wine were so impressive that eventually other producers emerged and from the 1990's Montalcino has been engulfed in a tidal wave of international interest in what was clearly Tuscany's answer to Barolo.

Montalcino has the double advantage of the warm, dry climate of the Tuscan coast with, in the best vineyards south of the town, the rockier, less fertile soils of the best Chianti sites. This can result in the most concentrated, long-lived forms of Sangiovese on the planet for ripening is not the perennial problem it can be in Chianti Classico.

The old method was to ferment this strong dark wine long and slowly on its skins to extract the maximum colour and flavour. It was then aged for years in large old Slavonian oak casks and decades in bottle. The result was a wine for heroes, or rather heroic millionaires, super-charged with flavour, extract and impact.

Even in Montalcino, however, wine laws have been adapted to modern tastes. The mandatory minimum four years in oak have been reduced to two (the wine not to be released until four years old) so that today's Brunello is much more likely to have been bottled while there was still sufficient fruit to counterbalance its power. And Montalcino was the first DOCG to be graced with a "junior DOC", Rosso di Montalcino, a (relatively) lighter wine which can be released at only a year old. This has swept up the less concentrated fruit and allowed Brunello to retain an average quality level that is in general admirably high.

This is all the more remarkable because the zone has been expanded so enormously, from just over 150 acres (60 ha) in 1960 to more than 3,700 (1,700ha) today. Altitudes vary from 490 ft (150m) above sea level in the Val d'Orcia in the south where the most potent wines tend to be made to 1,640 ft (500m) just south of the town where wines are more elegant and aromatic. Some areas are definitely better than most but it is too soon for the politically sensitive business of individual site classification.

The only question mark over Brunello di Montalcino's future is the invasion of the new oak barrique which has had the effect of smudging this very particular zone's highly distinctive character - more obvious in its Sangiovese than in the international grapes now widely planted in Montalcino. The resulting wines may be sold under the Sant' Antimo DOC - same boundaries as Brunello, different name.

Alto Adige

The Alto Adige, alias the Sudtirol, the southern tip of Austria's Tyrol, is Italy's most northerly wine region and one of its most vigorous and exciting. Its Alpine peaks proclaim both a cultural and viticultural melting pot. German is a more common language than Italian, yet French grape varieties are more widespread than Teutonic ones. Its vineyards traditionally supplied inexpensive soft, light red wines to Germany, but are systematically being replanted with more ambitious grapes - both the racy varietal whites on which Alto Adige's modern reputation has so far been
based and varieties that will produce serious red wines in warmer areas.

Production is centred on the benchland of the Adige Valley. Vineyard altitudes varying from 650 to almost 3,300 ft (200 to 1,000m) allow for infinite permutations of mesoclimate and grape variety. Most wines are sold under the blanket DOC. Alto Adige (Sudtiroler) plus the name of the grape.

Higher vineyards often steep and terraced as in the Isarco (Eisack) Valley, which stretches for 15 or 20 miles (24 or 32 km) northeast of Bolzano are home to German varieties - Muller-Thurgau, Riesling, Sylvaner and even (so close to Austria) Gruner Veltliner, whose aromas benefit from the wide fluctuations between night and day temperatures.

On slightly lower slopes Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco, and Pinot Grigio are fruity and lively, while the village of Terlano, on the way north to Merano, is highly rated for Sauvignon Blanc. The Gewurztraminer grape owes its name to its presumed origin, the village of Tramin (Termeno in Italian) 12 miles (19 km) south of Bolzano. The renowned producer Hofstatter shows why.

The workhorse red grape is the Schiava (alias Vernatsch). Its wines are pale, soft and rather simple, often with a bitter herbal twist. The best and most famous is Santa Maddalena (Sankt Magdalener). Lago di Caldaro (Kalterersee), a zone that extends far from the lake itself, Colli di Bolzano (Bozner Leiten) and Meranese di Collina (Meraner Hugel) are all Schiava DOC, often made semi-sweet for the German market. The Lagrein, also a local grape, produces much more serious stuff, including the deeply fruity rose Lagrein Kretzer and darker Lagrein Dunkel, both of which have ageing potential.

Red varieties imported in the 19th century - Pinot Noir, Merlot and Cabernet - can be very good, especially from growers who have abandoned the traditional pergolas for low wires. All of these, together with Lagrein, are replacing Schiava in the region's warmest sites east of Lake Caldaro and on the slopes above Bolzano.

Most wine is made in co-ops, and the better private producers such as Lageder, Hofstatter Widmann and Niedrist have now been joined by such ambitious co-operative wineries as those of Colterenzio, San Michele Appiano, Terlano, Termeno, Caldaro and Cortaccia.

Barolo

The Barolo zone starts just two miles southwest of Barbaresco with the Dolcetto vineyards of Diano d'Alba lying between. Two little tributaries of the Tanaro, the Talloria dell'Annunziata and Talloria di Castiglione, split Barolo into three main though highly convoluted hill ranges , rising nearly 165 ft (50 m) higher than the Barbaresco zone.

There are more than 2,950 acres (1,200 ha) of Barolo vineyard,s concentrated in this zone, just big enough for five villages in the relatively populous Langhe hills. So many expositions, altitudes and mesoclimates, and two main soil types, have provided endless fodder for the discussion of possible sub-zones.

To the west of the Alba road around La Morra, soils are very similar to those in Barbaresco, calcareous marls from the epoch geologists known as Tortonian. These westernn hills of the zone I n the communes of Barolo and La Morra tend to offer slightly less tense, more openly fragrant wines. The great vineyards here include Brunate, Cerequio, Rocche di La Morra, and La Serra in La Morra and Barolo's most famous site, Cannibu, on slightly lower ground.

To the east, however in the vineyards of Castiglione Falletto, Serralunga d'Alba, and those to the north of Monforte d'Alba, soils are Helvetian, much less fertile, with more sandstone. They tend to produce even more concentrated wines, Barolo's beefiest, which demand extremely long ageing, and with the years acquire a distinctive orange rim to their inky black depths. Prime examples include Bussia and Ginestra in Monforte and, in Castiglione Falletto, Vietti's Villero and the wine Scavino calls in Piemontese dialect Bric del Fiasc (Bricco Fiasco in Italian). Such examples of linguistic variation/flexibility abound. The only exception to the sterness of Castiglione Falletto's Barolos might be Bricco Rocche which, with its relatively sandy soil, can produce rather perfumed wines.

To the east lies Serralunga d'Alba with its enormous former royal estate of Fotanafredda, an association that helped developed Barolo's status as "the wine of kings, the king of wines". Serralunga d'Alba has some of Barolo's highest vineyards, but the warmth that builds up in the narrow valley that separates it from Monforte d'Alba to the west compensates for the altitude and even Nebbiolo can be ripened on the most suitable sites most years. It was in Serralunga that Gaja expanded from Barbaresco into the Barolo zone in the late 1980's, both wines having been awarded DOCG status in 1980.

Even before this, however, Barolo could boast dozens of dedicated grower-bottlers (domaines seems a better word than estates for this most Burgundian of Italy's wine regions). Traditions here are, as in Burgundy, that the same family who tends the vines makes the wine - even if there has been considerable evolution in the way that vivacious, expressive, almost Burgundian wine is made over the last two or three decades. Barolo is arguably the world's most uncompromising wine, depending on decades of bottle age to show its true allure, its ethereal bouquet. A few traditionalists have such a faithful and knowledgeable following that they can afford to continue to make such a wine. Others have adapted Barolo to modern times to a greater or lesser degree, by reducing fermantation and barrel ageing times so that the wines can be broached earlier. No-one is right, and only those who decided to ignore the unique qualities of this grape and this place would be wrong.

Marchesi di Barolo is located in the heart of Barolo with its red roofed houses overlooking lush vineyards stretched out over the hills of this prestigious wine producing area. In the town of Barolo there is a yellow painted house that proudly faces the Castle of Falletti and the rich and fascinating history of Marchesi di Barolo has been playing out in that building. It is a history of people dedicated to the vineyard, winery and cellars, of a constant quest for the finest quality, of personalities who contribute enterprise and imagination to that effort and above all of exceptional Barolo wines.

Barbaresco

Nebbiolo finds its most dazzling expression in the Langhe hills, on the calcareous clay marls of the right bank of the river Tanaro, to the northeast of Alba in the Barbaresco zone, and to the southwest of the city around the village of Barolo. The Nebbiolo grape is a particularly late ripener so the finest wine tends to come from slopes with a southern tilt that are not too high, between about 490 and 1,150 ft (150 and 350m)altitude.

Today the grower and his vineyard (the terms sori and bricco recur continually for distinguished sites) hold the key to Barolo and Barbesco. Tastings reveal consistent differences of quality, of aroma, of potency, and of finesse that in the Cote d'Or would justify the term cru. And yet the emergence of these great wines from the limbo of legend into the critical limelight was accomplished only in the 1980's.

It is the second time in 150 years that the region has been revolutionized. Up to the 1850's its Nebbiolos were vinified as sweet wines, their fermentation never satisfactorily concluded. A French oenologist, Louis Oudart, recruited by a reforming landowner in Barolo, demonstrated how the fermentation should be finished to make potent dry reds. His 19th century techniques of late picking, long extraction and endless ageing in huge old casks remained almost unaltered until the 1970's and 1980's. Around this time a newly critical public, putting "fruit" firmly on the agenda began to turn away from wines that were vastly tannic, and of overpowering strength, but often simply dried out by having waited too long for a maturity that never came.

Modern vinification had no problem finding the solutions, choosing the right moment to pick (nowadays pushing phenolic ripeness to the limit); fermentation in stainless steel at controlled temperatures; shorter macerations; shorter ageing periods in large old oak or, more controversially, ageing in small, new or newish barrels; and for those who invested in new-fangled rotary fermenters in the mid-1990's. maceration for days rather than weeks or even months that were traditional.

The results are still tannic wines that need to age, but ones in which the tannin merely frames a stunning array of haunting flavours. Great Barolos and Barbarescos can overlay smoky woodland notes on deep sweetness, the flavour of raspberries on leather and spice, leafy lightness on jam-like concentration. Older wines advance to animal or tarry flavours, sometimes suggesting wax or incense, sometimes mushrooms or truffles. What unites them is the racy cut of their tannins, refreshing rather than overwhelming the palate.

Barbaresco has less than half as much vineyard as Barolo. It is a big village on a ridge that wobbles west towards Alba, flanked all the way by vineyards of renown. Asili, Martinenga, and Sori Tildin are bywords for the finest reds: Roncagliette produces wines with the sort of balance so characteristic of those made around the village of Barbaresco itself to the north. A little lower to the east lies Neive, in whose castle Oudart experimented with Nebbiolo, and in whose vineyards Barbera, Dolcetto, and, especially, Moscato, are still more important than Nebbiolo, whose finest sites in Neive include Bricco di Neive and Santo Stefano. So thrilling were the powerful wines produced from some of Neive's best sites in the 1990's that attention has been increasingly focused on the area and a growing number of small growers are now bottling under their own labels.

South on higher slopes, some of which are more suitable for Dolcetto, lies the commune of Treiso, whose Nebbiolo tends to be particularly elegant and perfumed. Pajore was the most important cru historically. The authorities have divided the entire Barbaresco zone into contiguous subzones, some of very much better quality than others.

Barbaresco once played understudy to the much more famous Barolo, until Angelo Gaja, in a dazzling Missoni sweater, strode onto the world stage. Gaja has no inhibitions: his wines, whether classic Barbaresco (though no longer labelled as such now that this showman has opted out of the DOCG's strictures), experimental Cabernet, Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc, or Barbera treated like first-growth claret, state their case, and cost a fortune.

Bruno Giacosa had shown in the 1960's that Barbaresco could have the intensity if not always the sheer physical weight of Barolo, but it was Gaja who modernized the message, importing new barriques and new ideas without apparently a second thought in this most traditional of regions. In 2000 Gaja announced that he was renouncing the name he had made so famous and selling all the wine previously sold as Barbaresco DOCG, including his fabulously expensive single-vineyard Sori San Lorenzo, Sori Tildin and Costa Russi, as Langhe Nebbiolo, the catch-all appellation for declassified Barolo and Barbaresco and for wines containing up to 15% of "foreign" varieties such as Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah.

With this notable exception, and that of outstanding producers such as Giacosa and Marchesi di Gresy, overall standards of winemaking are still less evolved in Barbaresco than in Barolo, and historically a much higher proportion of the grapes were sold to the region's large merchant bottlers and co-operatives.

The vineyards of Barbaresco are generally slightly lower and warmer than those of Barolo, so the harvest is often earlier but the wines in general lack quite the staying power of Barolo at its best - which can be an advantage for today's frenetic wine consumers.

Piemonte

The name Piemonte means "the land at the foot of the mountain" and is spectacularly beautiful and hilly region at the foot of the Alps around Turin in the North West of Italy. The region is renowned for the production of a great number of fine and prestigious wines, with vines growing everywhere, producing 15% of all Italian wines. there are more designated DOC and DOCG wine production areas in Piemonte than in any other region of Italy and the quality of its wines is matched only by the excellence of its cuisine.

Piemontest food and wine are as inseparable as those of Burgundy. They are strong, rich, individual, mature, somehow autumnal. Truffles play an important part. One feels it must be more than coincidence that this is the Italian province nearest to France. Piemonte means "At the foot of the mountains" - the Alps. The Alps almost encircle the region, so that from its heart the Monferrato hills around Asti, they form a continuous dark, or in winter and spring sparkling white, horizon. Piemonte has a climate of its own, with a very hot growing season followed by a misty autumn and a cold, often foggy winter.

At vintage time in Barolo the hills are half hidden. Ramps of copper and gold vines, dotted with hazel and peach trees, lead down to the valley of the Tanaro, lost in the fot. It is a magical experience to visit Serralunga or La Morra and see the dark grapes coming in.

The two best red wines of Piemonte, Barolo and Barbaresco, take their names from villages. The rest have the names of their grapes - Barbera, Dolcetto, Grignolino, Freisa, Favorita. If to the grape they add a district name (for example Barbera d'Asti) it mans they come from a limited and theoretically superior area. The map shows the most important zones of central Piemonte - including that of the famous Moscaro d'Asti frizz ante the quintessence of sweet Muscat grapes in its most celebratory form. Asti (it dropped its Spumante suffix some years ago) is often scorned by wine snobs for the very cheerful simplicity that is its raison d'etre. It also has the considerable merit of containing less alcohol than virtually any other wine.

Light skinned Cortese grapes are grown south of Alessandria to the east to produce Gavi, one of Italy's more fashionable dry white wines in the 1980's. Demand for whites then also led to the promotion of an old local grape, Arneis, from a mere Nebbiolo-stretcher to make soft, light but perfumed wines not unlike Pinot Blanc - especially in the Roero hills northwest of Alba pm the sandy soils of the west bank of the Tanaro. More market-minded growers have successfully added Chardonnay (and Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc) to their portfolios. Langhe Chardonnay is particularly popular.

The Nebbiolo has no rival as the finest red grape of northern Italy. It does not have to meet Barolo or Barbaresco specifications to make mellow fragrant wine - indeed some seriously worthwhile Nebbiolo d'Alba, Langhe Nebbiolo and red Roero is made nowadays.

At the level just below noble, Barbera is the most important regional grape. Like Nebbiolo Barbera is dark and naturally high in acidity but it is often rather plumy and is approachable much earlier than Nebbiolo. The grapes have traditionally been picked earlier than Nebbiolo but they need relatively warm sites and later picking to bring the acidity down to palatable levels, as growers in Asti and Alba have shown. One of the most exciting and popular developments in Piemonte during the 1990's was the emergence of a host of Barberas aged in small oak casks, this grape apparently showing much more affinity for new oak than Nebbiolo.

Barbera's one possible rival is Dolcetto, which will still ripen in the coolest, highest sites; soft, where Barbera often bites, but capable of a marvellous balance between fleshy, dust-dense, and dry with a touch of bitter. The best Dolcetto comes from Alba, Diano d'Alba, Dogliani, and Ovada (for its most potent style)

Grignolino is consistently a lightweight cherry red but can be a fine and piquant one; at its best (from Asti or Monferrato Casalese) extremely clean and stimulating. All these are wines to drink relatively young.

Other specialities of this prolific region, the spaghetti-junction of denominaziones, include another frothy, sweet red wine, Brachetto d'Acqui; light red Verduno from Pelaverga grapes; sweet pink or red Malvasia di Casorzo d'Asti; the interesting yellow passito (made from semi-sweet grapes) with the DOC Erbaluce di Caluso; Loazzolo sweet white from dried Moscato grapes; and the agreeable blend of Barbera and Grignolino sold as Rubino di Cantavenna. One of the favourites of Turin itself is Freisa, often from Asti, a fizzy and frequently sweet red wine not unlike a tarter, fruity form of Lambrusco. You either love it or loathe it.

A forgiving Piemonte DOC has been invented for Barbera, Bonarda, Brachetto, Chardonnay, Cortese, Grignolino, Moscato, and Spumante sourced anywhere within the region to ensure that no IGT's sully Piemonte's reputation. Monferrato, between the River Po and the Apennines, encompasses grapes such as Cortese, Dolcetto and Freisa. No-one has ever accused Piemonte of a paucity of grapes, flavours and names.

Sicily

The Italian wine establishment (if that is not a contradiction in terms) has at last woken up to the enormous potential of the beautiful, climatically flavoured Mediterranean island of Sicily. It produces even more wine than the staggering volume made in Puglia, but enjoys a much more varied landscape as well as cultural heritage. The southeastern tip is south of Tunis; the distant island of Pantelleria, whose Muscats are justly famous, is on the same latitude as this North African city and closer to it than it is to Palermo. Sicily can be very hot, and the sea of white Catarratto vines planted in Trapani province in the west is regularly warmed to boiling point by winds from Africa. Irrigation is a necessity for a good half of Sicilian vineyards, but inland the landscape can be quite green and lush and the mountains in the northeast are usually snow-capped for several winter months.

The great majority of Sicilian wine is white, made in vast quantities by a co-op and still either embarrassingly surplus to anyone's requirements or shipped in bulk to the mainland for transformation into something else. But an increasing proportion red and white is now bottled, having been made with some skill (and modern equipment bought with the EU subsidies that have been poured into this once poverty-stricken island).

The grape that may make Sicily's vinous reputation is Nero d'Avola, whose other name, Calabrese, suggests its roots are Calabrian but which produces its most exciting wine in the southeast corner of Sicily around the baroque town of Onto. Here, notably in wines labelled Eloro Pachino made around the town of Eloro, it reaches full, glorious expression of mulberry-scented fruit but with quite enough structure to age well. This sort of red was once fermented hot and fast and sold off for blending but early peaks on the Sicilian wine-landscape such as Regeleali's Rossi del Conte showed just how magnificent it could be if handled more considerately. Nero d'Avola can have difficulty ripening in the island's higher vineyards but skilful producers such as Abbazia Sant'Anastasia have successfully transplanted it to the north coast where they blend it with both Syrah and Merlot.

Sicily has not, of course, escaped experimentation with international grape varieties - indeed Planeta's barrel-fermented Chardonnay has been regarded by Italians as one of their finest examples - but there are signs of a gradual re-evaluation of Sicily's own grapes, even if many of the best producers blend them with foreign imports. Other interesting red grapes are Frappato, which can make good lively wines to be drunk young, including the light red Cerasuolo for which Vittoria is famous, and Nerello Cappuccio, distinct from Etna's Nerello Mascalese.

Light-skinned grapes grown for the fortified wine Marsala or for Alcamo table wine or the European wine lake, dominate the hot, dusty west of the island, making Catarratto Italy's second most planted variety after Trebbiano. Some of the flying winemakers parachuted in to the island have made convincing, lightly oaked bottlings of this grape but interesting wines are more likely made from Grecanico and Inzolia.

Many of Sicily's most exciting modern wines are sold as IGT's for, with the recently renovated red Faro, the rest of Sicily's DOCs are reserved for her particular speciality: dessert wine. The Moscatos of Noto and Pantelleria, and the Malvasia of the volcanic islands of Lipari are outstanding examples of one of Italy's oldest vinous traditions.

Marsala, like a very distant cousin of sherry crossed with Madeira, has been famous since Nelson's day, when he fortified the Royal Navy with it. In the 1980's it seemed as though it might come back into fashion, but has now sunk into the deepest of doldrums. The historic houses of this overplanted zone, Pellegrino and Donnafugata, have put their eggs in the table wine basket, and even Marco De Bartoli, who virtually alone carries on Marsala's winemaking traditions, labels his two best wines, Vecchio Samperi Riserva 30 Anni and Vigna La Miccia, as Vini da Tavola.

Verona

The lovingly gardened hills of Verona, stretching from Soave, east of the city, westwards to Lake Garda, have such fertile volcanic soil that vegetation grows uncontrollably; the vine runs riot on every terrace and pergola, among villas and cypresses that are the image of Italian grace.

Their Soave is Italy's most famous white wine and comes in two almost unrecognizably different forms. The most common is the bland mouthwash spewed forth b y the powerful Cantina Sociale and the big negociant firms. They are supplied by hundreds of growers with regrettably few incentives to do anything other than maximise yields.

Real Soave, with its insistent combination of almonds and lemons, does exist, thanks to the persistence of small estates such as Pieropan and Anselmi (which, in 1999, after a series of disputes with local authorities, decided to operate outside the DOC system). These stalwarts have been joined by a new band of such conscientious producers as La Cappuccina, Fattori & Graney, Gini, Inama, Pra and Tamellini.

They operate in the original, classical area of Soave, centred on the eastern end of the Lessini Hills northeast of the village of Soave. This is the Classico zone, now surrounded by much flatter, more fertile land also allowed to call its wine Soave, a picture that is all too common in the modern Italian winescape.

The important grapes are Garganega and a local (rather than the Tuscan or pan0Italian) form of Trebbiano which make wines of an intensity and mouth-filling texture that bring the meaning of Soave (suave) into focus. Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc are also allowed, so long as Garganega makes up at least 70% of the wine.

The best producers typically make a range of single-vineyard or cru bottlings, expressing such character local sites as Vigneto La Rocca and Captel Foscarino, as well as experimenting with oak ageing and a wonderfully lively sweet version made from dried grapes, Recioto di Soave.

Soave cohabits with Valpolicella, whose DOC zone has been extended far beyond the original Classico zone until it reaches the boundaries of Soave, with the improving Galantine a permitted sub-zone dominated by the house of Bertani. Plain Valpolicella should have a beautiful cherry colour and flabour, a gentle sweet smell and a trace of bitterness as you swallow. The mass-produced article can often disappoint but there are now many more producers who recognize the need to make truly distinctive as opposed to commercially viable wine in Soave - just as the last decade of the 20th century saw a return to some of the more difficult-to-work but higher quality hillside sites.

Valpolicella Classico, from four fingers of higher altitude vineyard sheltering San Ambrogio Fumane and Negrar, has the same qualities as wine made outside this heartland but in an intensified form (although there are exceptional operators such as Dal Forna and Trabucci outside the Classico zone). The leading estates are extremely ambitious for Valpolicella Classico, seeing it, with justice, as one of Italy's most promo table products in every sense.

Vines are being planted on white-pebbled terraces at much higher densities and Guyot-trained to extract more flavour from every grape, above all late-ripening Corvina, the best of the region. Indeed some producers have even preferred to operate outside the DOC law, which imposed a maximum of 70% on the Corvina component and demanded the inclusion of tart and obviously inferior Molinara grapes as well as the traditional but neutral Rondinella. There is also some experimentation with rarer indigenous grapes such as Oseleta.

The most potent form of Valpolicella is as Recioto or Amarone, respectively the sweet (sometimes fizzy) and dry (also bitter) results of loft-drying selected grapes to make highly concentrated and potent wines, the climax of every Veronese feast. Such wines are the direct descendants of the Greek wines, shipped by the Venetians in the Middle Ages, adapted to the Venetian hinterland. And there is evidence that sweet Veneto wines were admired as early as the 6th century when Cassiodorus mentions Acinatico, revered for its sweetness by the court of the Gothic kings of Italy.

The old practice of ripasso strengthens Valpolicella from the main crop into Valpolicella Superiore by refermenting it on the pressed grape skins, preferably of Corvina, after an Amarone has finished fermentation. The first wine to be marketed as a ripasso Masti's Campofiorini, induced new respect for Valpolicella wine in the 1980's/

Such estates as Dal Forna, Le Ragose, Quintarelli and Tedeschi, and such merchants as Bertani, are also building up a constituency for Valpolicella Classico and its variants as one of Italy's surest things in wine.

Bardolino, from lower ground on the pretty lakeside of Garda, is a paler, more insubstantial wine - almost a rose, or chiaretto, drinkable as soon as fermented. Chiaretto del Garda, from the further shore, is similar.

Bianco di Custoza made to the south can, like Gambellara just east of Soave, be a surer bet than everyday Soave.