OK – hands up all those who thought that when these little weekly essays started a year ago, we'd be reading 'Everyday Italian Wine – 50' ? No. Me neither.

But the fact we have is evidence of the staggering diversity of the good, drinkable, affordable wine you'll find in Italy and in wine stores, supermarkets and restaurants around the world.

That said, I think I've taken the current format as far as it's possible to go. Time for a change.

In future, instead of a weekly 'Everyday Italian Wine', we'll be running a monthly review of one 'Special Italian Wine'.

Why ? Well, our price ceiling of €10/bottle on the 'Everyday' series, limits our ability to try any 'special occasion' Italian wines costing more. It'd be good to redress that balance.

There are, in case you're in any doubt, some absolute stormers on the shelves here in Italy at the €10+ level that still represent outstanding value for money – even when they're exported and get slapped by greedy Government taxes and the usual avaricious restaurant mark-ups.

Before that all starts – a few final recommendations from the 'Everyday Italian Wine' series.

Checking back, it's the red wines that have really impressed. And I guess that pretty much reflects the demands of the domestic Italian market in which reds predominate. The standout – by some distance – was Pasetti's delicious and deep Tenuta di Testarossa 2004, which again underlined the classiness of the Montepulciano D'Abruzzo grape.

We tasted the Tenuta di Testarossa for Christmas. At €16 not exactly an 'Everyday Italian Wine' – but it's what started me thinking about what we'd maybe been missing…

We have to go back a lot further for the standout whites of the series: Fontanafredda's Langhe Arneis 2005 and Cantina Miglianico's equally-sublime Gocce de Pecorino 2007.

Both these were sensational value for around the €7-8 mark. But their excellence just underlined how…well…ordinary so many Italian whites are. Mass- market; mass-appeal. Safe.

Crates of perfectly fine – but perfectly bland and unexciting – Soave, Pinot Grigio, Orvieto, Verdicchio, Frascati et al ad naus make the treasures you find so much more worthwhile. In the new series, I hope to find a few more.

And a 'Special Prize' ? Why not ? From the Asti region of Italy awash with Spumante and more DOCG wines than anywhere has a right to decently produce, a pleasant – but unexceptional – light red wine, on sale at €4.18, received the kind of makeover after a couple of hours in the fridge that turns ugly ducklings into swans.

The sparkly, zingy, refreshing, lusciously fruity and downright moreish wine that emerged was a wild and memorable transformation, made all the better by its sheer unexpectedness. You just had to smile.

And the name of this Clark Kent of a wine ? Gruppo Coltivo's Grignolino D'Asti 'Miniato' 2007. I just really liked it. A lot. And isn't that a pretty good reason ? Try it. Chill it. Enjoy it.

Coming Soon: the first 'Special Italian Wine'. Starting – of course – here in Abruzzo with Cantina Miglianico's top-of-the-range Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 'Il Fondatore' 2003. Join me in a glass !

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Terre di Franciacorta. Castel Faglia. 2006

It's quite unusual to find an Italian wine that's such a heady blend of different grapes as this given DOC status. Normally, the elephantine Italian rule'n'regulations that cover these matters would demote a wine like Terre di Franciacorta – however good – to the (theoretically less-good) IGT grade.

It's a problem that besets many a modern Italian wine-maker who tries to break free of the restrictions that don't exactly encourage moves away from making wine with traditional grapes in a traditional manner.

Terre de Franciacorta is a red wine from Lombardy – the region in the north of Italy around Milan. The area where Terre de Franciacorta comes from in Lombardy is a little to the west of Brescia and a little to the south of Lake D'Iseo.

You may have already come across Franciacorta in its DOCG guise reserved only for an astonishingly good methode champenoise sparkler. The humbler DOC label applies only to the area's red and still white.

The red is an absolute mongrel of a wine. Either Cabernet Franc, or Cabernet Sauvignon – or both – are the principal varieties used, along with smaller amounts of Merlot, Barbera and Nebbiolo.

The result in this instance, from the Castel Faglia co-op in the town of Cazzago San Martino, is intensely fruity and mouth-wateringly juicy, but with so many grape varieties to fit into the mix, it takes a wine-maker of rare skill to produce a wine as enjoyable as this. The balance has to be absolutely spot-on.

Here, there's clearly a good, upfront dollop of jammy Merlot with the presence of the CabSauv working away in the background adding structure to the package. This, along with the Nebbiolo also give a little ageing potential. The colour is a cheery cherry-red; the scent is brambly and in the glass it's vice-free and quaffable. Good on its own; good with food.

 Not massively robust, but a terrific wine for pasta and pizza, or to have alongside a bowl of proper minestrone; and it'd be a pretty fine accompaniment to a flame-grilled cheeseburger. Especially if the melted cheese just happened to be a tangily-robust English Cheddar or, perhaps better, a creamy Italian Gorgonzola…

This, if we're talking about reds, is about as good and typical an 'Everyday Italian Wine' as you'll find.

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Terre dei Franciacorta
• Vintage: 2006
• Producer: Castel Faglia
• Designation: DOC
• Grape: Unspecified blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Nebbiolo and Barbera
• Strength: 12.5%
• Closure: Plastic cork
• This bottle cost: €5.60

Next Week: 'Everyday Italian Wine' celebrates its 50th post !

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Vermentino di Gallura 'Funtanaliras'. Cantina del Vermentino-Monti. 2007

This is Sardinia's best white wine. No if's, but's or arguments. Actually, if we're speaking plainly, make that one of the best whites in all Italy. It's a beauty.

The vermentino grape is widely-grown across Sardinia – indeed Vermintino di Sardegna has its own DOC. But this is the real deal – its superiority recognised by the DOCG status it achieved in 1996.

This particular example is made with 100% vermentino grapes. It's permissable to have a 95/5% mix between vermentino and another white variety.

Vermentino di Gallura comes from the extreme north-east of Sardinia. It's an area of harsh conditions both in terms of weather and terrain, and this terroir comes across in the initial impression you'll get from this bottle. It's hard and flinty: not as instantly-approachable as most Italian white wines are.

The colour's beguiling. A soft greeny-gold. The first scent as you pour out a glass is startling: like the sparky whiff that's produced when you crack a couple of flints together. But let it breathe for a moment and you'll start to detect notes of melon and green pepper.

Now take a sip. Again there's that initial mineral hit, softening into apples and quince. Perhaps even a little citrussy hint too. A sharp edge kept under control by a delicious underlying softness that then develops into a surprising richness in the mouth. This is actually quite a complex and multi-dimensional wine. Not one you get the hang of after one glass. Or even, in this instance, three. It deserves its reputation.

Try this wine with any food for which you'd cheerfully open a good bottle of Chablis. Maybe it's ultimately a little rich for oysters – but sole, halibut or even, if you're incredibly affluent, turbot, all with maybe just a spoonful of melted butter into which you've stirred a little chopped chervil, would go incredibly well. 

Or if you've ever wondered just what to drink with that trendiest of combos – scallops and black pudding – this could at last be the answer !

Best to drink and enjoy within a year – two at most – of the vintage.

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Vermentino di Gallura 'Funtanaliras'
• Vintage: 2007
• Producer: Cantina del Vermentino-Monti 
• Designation: DOCG
• Grape: 100% Vermentino
• Strength: 12.5%
• Closure: Cork
• This bottle cost: €5.69

Next Week: An intriguingly-blended DOC red wine from Lombardy. A wine that you'll enjoy trying at home – and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation ?

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Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso. 'Tenuta Ca' Vescovo'. 2006

This is a red wine from the Aquileia DOC region in Friuli, a bit to the south of Udine, which is just about as far as it's possible to go in north-east Italy without actually crossing into Slovenia.

The area of Aquileia is notable for producing a number of single-grape wines, with Refosco perhaps the best.

Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso owes its name to the bright red colour of its stems and is a late-ripening heritage grape reputedly known to the Romans.

This particular bottle, produced by the local Cervignano Co-Op right in the heart of Aquileia, comes from an area once owned by the Patriarch of Aquileia – its 'Tenuta Ca' Vescovo' branding can be loosely translated as 'The Bishop's Vineyard.

Compared to last week's truly dreadful bottle, even a can of paint would've been favourably reviewed this week, but thankfully this is wine that re-establishes confidence. It's rich and dark and seemingly stronger than its fairly innocuous 12.5%. In boxing parlance, it punches above its weight.

The initial bouquet and taste are almost port-like, with distinct traces of raisin and prune. A little tannin is in evidence, supporting the claim that this is a wine that'll age nicely for up to five years in the bottle. This 2006 – a decent year – is perhaps just a little young. If you come across a bottle, stick it in a wine rack for a couple of years and I suspect it'll have then developed into something pretty good.

That's not to say you won't enjoy this wine right now. Though it'll improve, as it's drinking at the moment, you couldn't find a better accompaniment at the price to the pasta with game sauces that crop up on every winter restaurant menu in this part of Abruzzo. And it's one of the very few wines around that isn't scared-off by strong Taleggio cheese !

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine:  'Tenuta Ca' Vescovo'
• Vintage: 2006
• Producer: Cervingnano Co-Op
• Designation: DOC
• Grape: 100% Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso
• Strength: 12.5%
• Closure: Cork
• This bottle cost: €4.68

Next Week: Sardinia's undisputed best white wine. The wonderful DOCG Vermentino di Gallura from one of the island's top producers. It's a wine you're going to enjoy trying at home – and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

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Est ! Est !! Est !!! Bigi. 2007

Here's the story: In the year 1100, Bishop Johannes Fuger was travelling from Austria to Rome for the coronation of Emperor Henry V. Each day, he'd send his servant Martin on ahead to scout out local taverns and choose the one serving the best wine for their overnight stop. Martin would denote his choice by chalking up the word Est ! ("Here it is") on the tavern's wall.

But when Martin reached the town of Montefiascone, on the shores of Lake Bolsena, north of Rome, he was so bedazzled by the local white, that Est ! Est !! Est !!! appeared on the tavern wall.

Bishop Johannes seemed to agree with Martin's recommendation. So whole-heartedly in fact that he never did make it to Rome for the coronation. Or even back to Austria.

Instead, he remained in Montefiascone for the rest of his days, contentedly guzzling the local brew. You can still see his tomb there and until recently, a barrel of local wine was poured over his grave each year on the anniversary of his death.

But don't think for a minute that the wine that deflected Bishop Johannes off the straight-and-narrow was the same wine that's on offer today as Est ! Est !! Est !!! 

The 12th century Est ! Est !! Est !!! is likeliest to have been a sweet Muscat – though nobody can of course say for sure. Today's Est ! Est !! Est !!! is a well-established Trebbiano/Malvasia blend. But had Bishop Johannes tasted the 'new' Est ! Est !! Est !!! would he again have abandoned his pious life – or sacked Martin and swept on to Rome ?

Problem is that the marketing ploy of local producers around Montefiascone to latch onto the legend and slap the Est ! Est !! Est !!! label onto their wine was so successful that they found – quite literally – they couldn't make enough. Prices rose. But quality plummetted. Don't want it Secco ? Not a problem – here's a semi-dry version. Not authentic enough ? We'll make it sweeter. Want more ? We'll produce more. Somehow.

It's a regular ploy of mine with popular wines to go for a bottle from good producer and Bigi is a quality name in Orvieto – not so far away from Montefiascone. Not a good call on this occasion as it turned out.

This isn't some vicious blend of industrial alcohol and grape concentrate that'll keep you up all night with its after-effects. At least it's drinkable – if there's nothing else – but it's a sad, dismal, wine. Oversweet and overrated. A wine made to sell on its reputation alone with scant regard for what's in the bottle.

The sad thing is that deep down in the bottle is a potentially good wine struggling to get out. A Trebbiano/Malvasia blend can produce quite a zippy, tangy wine good for quaffing on a hot summer's day. With a little more refinement and a lot less over-production, Est ! Est !! Est !!! could be that wine.

But this bottle would've turned Bishop Johannes teetotal. Est Est Est ? Next Next Next…

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Est ! Est !! Est !!!
• Vintage: 2007
• Producer: Bigi
• Designation: DOC
• Grape: Trebbiano/Malvasia blend
• Strength: 12%
• Closure: Cork
• This bottle cost: €3.20

If you like better Italian wine than this, check out the absolute stormer we featured last time – and bookmark this site for future weekly posts.

Next Week: a gem of a heritage red from Friuli in Italy's far north-east. A wine you'll enjoy trying at home – and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

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Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. 'Tenuta di Testarossa'. Pasetti. 2004

An absolutely superb wine to take us into the Christmas and New Year festivities. Because more special meals are cooked at this time of year than any other, your efforts in the kitchen deserve a really special wine to accompany them – and that's a good enough reason to go over our usual €10/bottle 'Everyday Italian Wine' limit.

You might need to hunt around a little, but this 2004 'Tenuto di Testarossa' is certainly available to buy right now in the UK and USA in the £/$25-35 range (which is fantastic value) and I've seen it on a number of restaurant wine-lists too. Though at the usual rapacious mark-ups.

Before we taste, a little background, which is necessary really when we're talking about a wine of this quality. The Pasetti winery is based in the Abruzzo coastal town of Francavilla, a little to the south of Pescara. But the Montepulciano D'Abruzzo grapes that make 'Tenuta di Testarossa'  are grown some distance inland in vineyards over 500m up between the Majella and Gran Sasso mountains.

These grapes aren't generally harvested before November each year – about the same time as the September-gathered vino novello is being released – almost suicidally late when you think how autumn frosts and rains could so easily wipe out the crop.

But the trade-off for this display of vinous brinkmanship is an incredible concentration of flavour within those grapes. If you can get away with it, the rewards are stunning. Then follows a couple of years in wood, before the final release in a flamboyantly-labelled, absurdly sexy, tall, thin bottle.

Open this an hour or so before you want to drink it. Better yet, decant it. Take a sniff and enjoy the huge rush of black cherry, liquorice and cloves. In the glass, 'Tenuta di Testarossa' is a dark and deep wine. Have a taste. That spicy cherriness now joined by a little overlay of vanilla from the time in wood. The finish is long and dry. There's a softness here too, tempered with just a little tannin, that rounds everything off to perfection.

Don't try and match this wine with food equally as rich and deep. You'll set-off a clash of competing tastes and flavours. Keep it simple. 'Tenuta di Testarossa' really will drink beautifully with a traditional roast turkey Christmas lunch. Perhaps even more so with roast goose. The last food-and-Testarossa combination I tried was with gently-braised rabbit at the wonderful Ai Vecchi Sapori restaurant in Lanciano. Hardly seasonal – but just perfect. 

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Tenuta di Testarossa
• Vintage: 2004. (Others to look out for – 2002 and 2006. The highly-encouraging 2007 will be released sometime in 2010)
• Producer: Pasetti
• Designation: DOC
• Grape: 100% Montepulciano D'Abruzzo
• Strength: 14%
• This bottle cost €16.50

Pasetti

Though Pasetti produce one or two other pricier wines, 'Tenuta di Testarossa' is their flagship and the one that's dearest to their hearts, made from a select family plot of 40-year old vines. You'll find much more about the wine – and the rest of the catalogue on the Pasetti website – (choose the HTML option, or you'll go mad waiting for the Flash version to load) – but the real Christmas clincher is the story of how 'Testarossa' came to be named and its heritage. It's a delightful and romantic way to end the wine-drinking year. 

That's it for this year – the next 'Everyday Italian Wine' blog will be on Friday 2 January, when we'll be reviewing one of Italy's most famous white wines. A reputation that some reckon is entirely undeserved. Does 'famous' equal 'good' ? And more importantly, is it a wine you'll enjoy drinking at home and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation ? 

May all your Christmasses be white. Or red. Or possibly pink. And a Happy New Year !

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Barbera D'Alba "Parpan". Fontanafredda. 2005

Barbera D'Alba is one of the seemingly endless supply of top-quality reds that appear year after year with effortless ease from the wine treasure-house of Piedmont.

Barbera D'Alba isn't quite as good as its near neighbour Barbera D'Asti – though that's a bit like saying a Maserati isn't quite as good as a Ferrari – but this week's bottle makes up for that tiny discrepancy by coming from one of Piedmont's outstanding producers. Barbera D'Alba "Parpan" is one-up the ladder from Fontanafredda's entry-level Barbera and is an excellent wine at a bargain price.

This is made from 100% Barbera grapes, gathered on a co-operative basis from growers in this particular DOC area. It's given a full year in wood as part of the production process and will drink happily – and get better in the bottle – for up to 10 years from the vintage date, getting progressively smoother and more rounded.

But generally-speaking, Italians like their wines young – hence the appearance on the shelves now of this particular bottle just three years after the vintage. In Piedmont, 2005 was a so-so year, made difficult by heavy rain, with the best wines coming from the best producers. These – as with this bottle – are drinking just fine now, and should whet your appetite for the potentially stupendous 2006 vintage – which really will need a little time to settle down so you can enjoy it to the full.

Here, you'll get a full-blooded blast of liquorice and dark chocolate on opening the bottle. In the glass, quite soft; no real tannis and an almost herbal note, undercut with with damsons and a long, dry finish. It's a wine you can buy with confidence to eat with practically any Italian food, (tempered with my usual plea to throttle-back on the tomatoes), hence its appearance on a great many Italian restaurant wine lists – for the usual outrageous and larcenous mark-up.  

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Barbera D'Alba "Parpan"
• Vintage: 2005
• Producer: Fontanafredda
• Grape: 100% Barbera
• Strength: 13%
• Closure: Cork
• This bottle cost: €4.99

Fontanafredda

This isn't the first time we've featured a wine from this excellent producer. In April we reviewed an absolute gem of a Langhe Arneis white, which is still one of the very best wines we've featured in this series. Fontanafredda is a major player in Piedmont and the English version of its site – irritatingly fiddly to navigate around, but persevere – is casually dotted with great DOCG wines. However it's the quality of the everyday wines from a big producer that impress me and so far, that confidence hasn't been misplaced.

If you like Italian wine, why not check out last week's 'Everyday Italian Wine'- and bookmark this site for future weekly posts !

Next Week: Something very, very special for Christmas. A wine for you to drink at home with your Christmas lunch and enjoy with a special meal on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation

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Moli'. Di Majo Norante. 2006

Whether it's down to some astute choices, or just a happy accident, we seem to have been on a bit of a roll lately discovering good, new, everyday Italian wine. This week, that roll continues, with a white wine from Molise, the small region to Abruzzo's immediate south.  

Though it can trace its heritage back to Roman times, Molise wine isn't (yet) a modern headline-grabber. There are only three DOC areas. One – the catch-all 'Molise DOC' – was only awarded this status in 1988. The other two – Biferno and Isernia – came into being just a little before that in the early 1980s. Of these, Biferno produces the best wine: and the best producer in this best area is Di Majo Norante, with vineyards on the coastal strip of Molise inland from the port of Termoli.

Di Majo Norante has been making wine for over 200 years and latterly have pioneered the blending of traditional Molise grapes varieties with more mainstream central/southern Italian grapes. The brand-name Moli' - is the 'house white' (and there's also a red version) made predominantly from the Falanghina grape, blended with Malvasia and Bombino – one of the local heritage varieties.

Thanks to the bewildering complexities of Italian DOC rules'n'regs, this wine only carries basic IGT status – (don't even begin to ask why) – but is one of those classic examples that prove again and again that IGT doesn't mean 'ordinary'. On the contrary, this is a good wine.

It's an unusually deep golden colour for a dry white. The initial scent as you uncork the bottle is unmistakably that of ripe pears, while in the glass, you'll get hints of green apple and citrus – though without the least degree of astringency – and quite a long flinty, mineral finish. For me, this is very much a wine to accompany food, rather than to drink on its own.

Which leads to the enjoyable question of what food to team it with ? If you fancy being a little adventurous, Chinese cooking would be good – but not too spicy. In fact, this Molise wine would go particularly well with any seafood, poultry or pork prepared with a light touch on the spice-grinder. But no tomatoes. They'd clash horribly.

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Moli'
• Vintage: 2006
• Producer: Di Majo Norante
• Designation: IGT
• Grape: 70% Falanghina; 15% each of Malvasia and Bombino
• Strength: 12.5%
• Closure: Plastic cork
• This bottle cost: €4.45

Di Majo Norante
I don't think I've ever seen a list featuring so many grape varieties. There are 14 Molise wines featured – made with at least the same number of different grapes ! You'll know the mainstream – like Montepulciano, Sangiovese, Aglianico and Muscat; you might not have come across some of the others – like Tintilia and Prugnolo (a Sangiovese variant). So choose your bottle carefully. Top red is the 14% Montepulciano/Aglianico 'Don Luigi' blend with a  year in wood. But for a cheaper introduction to Molise wine, you won't go far wrong with either of this 'entry level' Moli' white or its stablemate red.

Click on the pictures in the text for larger images – and if you like Italian wine, check out last week's 'Everyday Italian Wine" and bookmark this site for future weekly posts.

Next Week: from a little-known Italian white to a very well-known Italian red: Barbera D'Alba from the ever-reliable Fontanafredda. It's a wine you'll enjoy drinking at home – and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

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Vino Novello 2008. Cantine Tollo and Miglianico

November in Abruzzo is a good month. We get our first taste of the year's new olive oil – emerald green and peppery; the sweet chestnuts are are gathered in sackfuls for roasting on open wood and charcoal fires; and best of all, around the middle of the month, all the local cantine release their Vino Novello.

What exactly is Vino Novello ? In Abruzzo, it's the first September pickings of the red Montepulciano d'Abruzzo grape, with wine not produced by crushing the grapes as normal, but by a process known as carbonic maceration, using whole, uncrushed grapes, which produces intensely fruity wine, low in tannins. It's not a wine for keeping. In Abruzzo, the last bottles of Vino Novello will have all been drunk by January. 

Maybe you remember the hysteria – and the hysterical prices – that used to surround the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau in the UK ? The arrival of Abruzzo's Vino Novello isn't a similar exercise in one-upmanship to see who can be the first to buy a bottle, but rather a cause for intense interest and speculation – what's it going to be like ?

The 2008 vintage wasn't easy. Hail just as the fruit was setting on the vines in early June; then some rain during the harvest in September – but if anyone could overcome these problems and make good Vino Novello, it had to be our two top local producers Cantina Tollo and Cantina Miglianico. But I hadn't expected their two wines to be so very different…

At first sight, Cantina Tollo's vino novello looked more like cherryade than red wine – very pale in comparison to the rich, plummy red that was in the Cantina Miglianico glass. On first appearances then – one-up to Miglianico.  Then a little sniff of what was in the two glasses. From Tollo, a clear, clean, vibrant fruitiness that I couldn't wait to drink; from Miglianico – well, not a very great deal really. All rather muted. 

So it all came down to the taste. Tollo's wine more than lived-up to its promise in the glass and was absolutely delicious – the real essence of what a top Vino Novello should taste like. Soft, fruity, quaffable – and without a hint of tannin.

Not so Miglianico's novello. This a much heavier wine than Tollo's; indistinct and surprisingly tannic and without that absolute piercing clarity of flavours that's the trademark of these early-release wines. It's not unpleasant – but as a Vino Novello, it's not that great either. Shame really, as last year's Cantina Miglianico novello was an absolute belter – the best of the bunch by a mile

Just for the fun of it, I took a leaf out of the Beaujolais Nouveau book and gave both these wines a couple of hours in the fridge. The Tollo was again superb – and I can't decide whether I prefer it cool or at room temperature. The Miglianico was simply muddy. But there's always next year…

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wines: Vino Novello
• Vintage: 2008
• Producers: Cantina Tollo; Cantina Miglianico
• Designation: IGT (both)
• Grape: 100% Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (both)
• Strength: 12.5% (both)
• Closure: Plastic cork (both)
• These bottles cost: €2.49 (both) – as part of a special local vino novello promotion !

Click on the images in the text for larger images – and if you like Italian wine, why not check out last week 'Everyday Italian Wine' and bookmark this site for future weekly posts !

Next week: Our first review of a wine from Molise – the region beyond Abruzzo's southern border. We taste a white from the area's best producer and discover if it's a wine you'll enjoy at home – and on your Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

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Aglianico del  Vulture. 'Corte dei Reami'. Cantina di Venosa. 2004
You've probably come across wine made from the aglianico grape before as it's the red wine grape across a great swathe of southern Italy. Pretty harsh and tannic when it's young – but a different story entirely when it's got a bit of age to it. 

Aglianico del Vulture, (say it vool-TOOR-ay) is made in the Basilicata region of Italy's deep south and is the only DOC wine you'll find from here. Production's extremely tightly controlled, with wine made from aglianico grapes grown in the reddish volcanic soil of just 15 comunes around Mount Vulture allowed DOC status.

The example comes from Venosa, a town of great antiquity in the north-east corner of Basilicata, and is produced by the local co-op from grapes gathered from around 500 local growers. This 2004 will have accumuated three years in barrel and bottle before release and is just hitting its stride nicely.

This is a bottle you'll need to open an hour or so before you drink it. Better yet, decant it into jug or carafe and just let it sit. It'll make an appreciable difference for the better. Colour in the glass is a deep garnet and the aroma is rather classy with distinct tones of fresh coffee and mulberries. The tannins are now soft – and will get softer, for this wine will happily go on improving for around 10 years after the vintage – with the richness of the fruit overlaid with a hint of bitter chocolate. The finish is long enough to cross adjoining time-zones. Intensely savoury and delicious. This is a very good wine.

Go up a notch in class and price to a 'Riserva' Aglianico del Vulture and you'll be buying a wine known – with reason – as the 'Barolo of the South'. But without the epic price-tag usually carried by the 'Barolo of the North'. Five years in wood and bottle; an ageing potential of 20 years – or more – and a wine of rich opulence that will drink perfectly with game, or a properly-aged roast sirloin of beef.

And a little inside gossip. In the neighbouring region of Campania, no more than 50 miles from where Aglianico del Vulture is produced, you'll find 'Taurasi' – another top-notch wine made from the aglianico grape. You'd be hard-pressed to notice distinct differences between this and a Riserva AdelV, but crucially, 'Taurasi' has been awarded DOCG status – and that adds to its prestige and, consequently, its price. Strong lobbying has been in progress for a similar promotion for Aglianico del Vulture. So now would be a good time to buy before that lobbying pays off and prices go up…

At A Glance…

• This week's featured wine: Aglianico del Vulture. 'Corte dei Reami'
• Vintage: 2004
• Producer: Cantina di Venosa
• Designation: DOC (for the moment…)
• Grape: 100% Aglianico
• Strength: 13%
• Closure: Cork
• This bottle cost: €4.70

Cantina di Venosa
Hardly surprising that the Cantina di Venosa's list is dominated by aglianico variants, including a rose and even an 'Aglianico Spumante' – which sounds like fun ! There's a very little white on the list – a dry Muscat probably the pick  here – plus a Muscat sparkler and a grappa, but the star of the show is the top-of-the-line 'Carato Riserva'. Powerful and profound – and at 14%, not for the faint-hearted !

Click on the pictures in the text for larger images – and if you like Italian wine, why not check-out last week's 'Everyday Italian Wine' and bookmark this site for future weekly posts.

Next Week: It's November – and here in Abruzzo, the year's new wine has just been released. Join us in a head-to-head tasting of the 'Novello' from our two favourite local cantine – Miglianico and Tollo: another good reason for an end-of-year Villasfor2 Abruzzo vacation !

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