Yesterday’s tasting at One George Street, hosted by the wonderful Berry Bros & Rudd, is worth a mention. For the last few years

David Berry Green has been resident in Italy. In that time he has built up a superb portfolio of Italian wines, and these were on show to the press and consumers.

Italy is an amazingly diverse wine country. From the cool north to the southern tip, it has vineyards. Most produce poor wine, as do most of the world’s vineyards. But there exist in each region winegrowers producing superb results.

I have already written up two of these producers on the main wineanorak.com site.

First of all, Carbone in Basilicata. Sara Carbone and her brother are making superb Aglianico and Fiano from Mount Vulture

Second, Graci in Sicily. These are interesting, authentic wines from Mount Etna.

It’s so encouraging to see such authentic, exciting and relatively affordable fine wines emerge. And it’ also exciting that  a major fine wine retailer in the UK is treating Italy with the respect it deserves.