Wines of the week: 8 Italian reds
Terry Kirby rounds up eight great juicy, berry-packed bottles to suit those in the mood for something easygoing – and those looking for a dinner party glass-raiser
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Your support makes all the difference.Apologies to Italy. Please don’t take it personally. I love Italy and Italian wines, but I realise that a lot of my columns during the summer months have been devoted to wines from places other than the home of the Renaissance and Pompeii. No particular reason, it’s just worked out that way.
Therefore, I find myself with a backlog of excellent Italian wines to bring to your attention, which, for one reason or another, have just not made it into any recent columns. And so redress the balance here are some fine Italian reds, both classic and more unconventional, suitable for anything from everyday meals to dinner parties and the more substantial fare we will be eating as autumn wears on.
Firstly, those juicy guzzlers that we turn to when the pizza is on its way or the pasta is bubbling, awaiting a nice rich tomato sauce. Not to be confused with the much more prestigious sangiovese-based Vino Nobile du Montepulciano, but made with the Montepulciano grape, the Campotino Tenuta Del Priore Montepulciano D’Abruzzo 2017 (£8.95 tanners-wines.co.uk) is just such a wine – a lovely easy-going bottle from the Atlantic coast, packed with brambly, crunchy black fruit, touches of chocolate and a lovely soft finish. Almost as good and a bit cheaper is the Tesco Finest Montepulciano D’Abruzzo (£7.00 tesco.com), the kind of wine I might stock up on now for festive season parties. Both probably prefer to be drunk out of tumblers.
From the coastal Maremma region of Tuscany, the Cecchi Morellino di Scansano DOCG 2018 (£9.99 waitrose.com) also falls into the juicy guzzler category, with lots of fruit-forward sangiovese flavours, with slightly more emphasis on cherry as opposed to the blackberry flavours of the previous two wines. Sangiovese is of course the staple grape of the one Italian wine everyone can name, Chianti, although its reputation was once sullied by poor quality control and indifferent, mass-produced wine.
But if you hunt around, it’s possible to find some excellent examples, particularly if you look for wines labelled “classico” – which denotes the approved zone (and exquisite countryside) roughly between Sienna and Florence in the centre of Tuscany – and signified by the black cockerel somewhere on the label. So, here are three, er, classic, chianti classicos worth checking out: firstly, the Primocolle Chianti Classico 2016 (£11.99 noblegrape.co.uk) also produced by Cecchi, from an ancient estate just north of Sienna, with characteristic, elegant, structured cherry and red berry flavours.
The Brolio Barone Ricasoli Chianti Classico 2016 (£17.30 hedonism.co.uk; £32.00 for 1.5lt, thewinesociety.com), from one of the oldest names in Tuscany, is more medium-bodied and juicy, with lively black fruits and lovely approachability, given a little complexity from some light oak ageing. A great wine for baked pasta and steak. From another ancient name, in the Ruffino Chianti Classico Riserva Ducale Oro 2014 (£28.72 tannico.co.uk), the sangiovese grapes are topped up with a little merlot and cabernet sauvignon for complexity and structure, with tarry, dark fruit flavours, cut through with appealing freshness. This an elegant, dinner party wine for roast poultry and autumnal casserole dishes, particularly anything involving mushrooms.
Amarone is chunkier and weightier than most chianti. Made in the Veneto region from partially sundried valpolicella grapes to give a richness and complexity, with spicy, baked fruit flavours, it can command high prices; the No Name IGT Veneto Appassimento (£16.99 virginwines.co.uk) is an amarone style wine, but, according to Virgin, cannot actually be called that and is only available at a sensible price if the precise origin remains hidden.
Well, whatever the deal, the almost Christmas pudding like flavours are intriguing and satisfying – a powerful, voluptuous, mouthfilling wine. Another left-field wine is the Ultima Edizione De Farnese NV (£10.99 laithwaites.co.uk) made in Abruzzo from a blend of juicy montepulciano and sangiovese grapes from that region with wilder and spicier primitivo and negroamaro from Puglia in the south of Italy. The result is impressively intense, complex, smooth and with considerable depth of fruit flavours. Both are for those colder autumnal nights, when they arrive.
So, okay Italy? Happy now? Promise I won’t leave it so long in future…
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