Teroldego Rotaliano. 2006. Mezzacorona

With the temperature here in Abruzzo now starting to nudge into the 80s on a regular daily basis, the search is on for a hot-weather red that isn’t going to make you feel like you’ve been coshed after a couple of glasses. This isn’t the season - at least not during daylight hours - for some hefty red weighing in at 14% or so, but for something lighter and fruitier that can maybe stand an hour or so in the refrigerator and go perfectly with that long lunch on a shady, sun-dappled terrace. This’ll do nicely…

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Work’s at last started on our Abruzzo property rebuild. But before our new Abruzzo houses can be built, our old Abruzzo houses must come down. Welcome to Demolition Day !

It took Demolition Domenico most of the day to flatten the main house, taking particular care to salvage the massive roof timbers which we’ll clean, cut to size and reuse both in our new house and the three villas…

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Falanghina ‘Ante Hirpis’. 2006. Vinicola del Sannio
This is a wine that’s divided opinion among the staff at Villasfor2 HQ. 50% (me) rather like it; 50% (Pauline) don’t. It comes from a part of the Campania region to the north-east of Naples and is made by the Vinicola del Sannio in the hilly Benevento area only a few miles into Campania from neighbouring Molise.

Falanghina, (say it with a hard ‘g’ as in ‘got’), is an ancient grape variety that allegedly was known to the Romans. To me, the wine it produces is rather reminiscent of the Portuguese vinho verde…

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