WALTER SPELLER
on Italian wine

Long a staple for everyday wine, Ansonica – aka Inzolia – is getting a makeover on the Tuscan coast. Corinna Vicenzi is shown here, leaning on a stack of crates with shrivelled, sun-dried Ansonica bunches destined for a sweet wine from her Il Cerchio estate. This is the unedited, original version previously published on www.JancisRobinson.com. Inzolia, with over 7,000ha one of Sicily’s most planted varieties, never struck me as especially remarkable, because the majority of w

The history of Tasca d'Almerita's Rosso del Conte, arguably Italy's first 'Super Somewhere' (in this case Sicily) from indigenous varieties and released a full year earlier than Sassicaia's first commercialised vintage. This article, with the vertical of Rosso del Conte appeared previously on www.JancisRobinson.com in July 2013 and is reprinted with kind permission. Cheek gets you everywhere. At least that is what I thought for a moment when I contacted Alberto Tasca d’Alme

Previously published under the title Mamoiada – the apex of Grenache in Italy on www.JancisRobinson.com, this is the unedited version. And it is long... Mamoiada's vineyards on a hot, sultry summer's day in 2024 A village with an ancient wine culture tries to come to grips with a challenging, but potentially bright future. While a young generation takes its inspiration from Burgundy, the traditionalists cling to the historic wine style. Both are thread of the same cloth, bu

When I heard that Santiago Marone Cinzano, scion of the family that once owned Cinzano and son of Francesco Marone Cinzano, owner of Col d’Orcia in Montalcino, has come up with a wine that does away altogether with the concept of crus or single vineyards, I was at first sceptical. The wine, called Lot.1, which will from a different plot each vintage, looked like a vanity project of the 30-years old, not least due to the super-confident marketing material, claiming that Maro