For interesting white wines, look to Italy
Cestino Pecorino, Terre di Chieiti IGT, Italy 2018 (£6.35, the Co-op) It’s most likely something about how it is sold in this country – and, to be fair, the way it’s written about – but there’s a slightly weird intensity about the way we go about buying wine. It’s as if we expect every wine we buy to blow our socks off in a way that we don’t with other food and drink. Even the most basic wine will have a tasting note filled with adjectives suggesting complexity and inviting contemplation. There are wines worthy of serious attention. More often, what you want is a pleasant end to a day, or an accompaniment for dinner. This is something well understood by Italian white-wine makers. And there’s a craft in producing unshowy, discreetly delicious wines like this pecorino from Abruzzo that bring out the best in, say, creamy pasta.
Basilisco Sophia Bianco, Basilicata, Italy 2018 (from £15.17, corkingwines.co.uk, strictlywine.co.uk) The craft I’m talking about is that of the supporting actor, and is just as hard to get right as a showy lead. There’s a fine line between subtlety and anonymity, and a great many supermarket bottles of pinot grigio and soave, and pizza restaurant orvieto and frascati, fall on the wrong, watery side of it. The same is true of the Piedmontese staple gavi, which can be bluntly lemony and dull but also a brilliantly useful, unfussy and affordable fish-friendly white (the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference, £9, and Waitrose, £8.49, own-labels are both reliable). When it’s not made with care, Italian grape variety fiano is rather different: it can be overbearingly peachy and lacking in zip. When it’s good, such as the Basilisco Sophia from Basilicata, it combines heady exotic scents and oiliness of texture with a wave of mineral-infused, food-friendly freshness.
Planeta Eurizione Bianco 1614 Carricante, Sicily, Italy 2017 (£29.95, greatwesternwine.co.uk) The best fianos show that, as well as a wealth of discreet everyday bottles, Italian producers can make white wines that rival the country’s famous reds for complexity – wines that belong in that brilliantly named category vino da meditazione (meditation wine). With a handful of exceptions (such as the remarkable, remarkably expensive Valentini Trebbiano d’Abruzzo 2014, £108, frw.co.uk) the majority of Italy’s most rewardingly deep and meaningful whites come from the far north and south. Sicily is an increasingly fertile source of fine white wines, with the electric variety carricante, grown on the slopes of Mount Etna, responsible for some of the most striking bottles: Planeta’s example has a blossomy quality matched with nectarine and a riesling-like spine of acidity. And from the other end of the country, Gini Contrada Salvarenza Soave Classico 2016 (from £26.12, tannico.co.uk; justerinis.com), is a mellow, evocative compote of dill-like herbiness, greengage and lemon.
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