Italy visit - in search of unexplored Prosecco

This update comes to you from the cool, crisp hills of Traviso in January, as the buying team visit several as-yet-unnamed growers looking to bolster our range of Prosecco wines in anticipation of the coming summer.

We then visited Stephano, Tiziano and Allessandre Accordini of Corte Alta, and found the cellar busy with bottling in progress. We were fortunate to taste the 2015 Valpolichelo Classico, having just been released from maturation in tanks. We tasted the Ripasso, Amarone and of course the fabulous Recioto sweet wine, of 100% air-dried grapes. Tiziano talked of the need to balance volumes of Aberone with Ripasso as he needs one old barrel of Aberone from a previous year to make two barrels of Ripasso the next.

Finally we called to visit the Portinari Family, meeting Maria and Silvo to taste the 2014 vintage Soave Classico Ronchetto (DOC) and Soave Albare (DOC) of the same year. We then tried the Soave Albare and Santo Stefano of previous years, tasted generously with home-made Salami Portinari!

Arrivederci!