Another change of personnel on this year’s trip to Italy with Roy returning to supervise the choice of restaurants and Katie unable to travel because of her increasing size – not as a result of overeating on last year’s trip, but due the imminent arrival of her second child.

Looking around for some good news (other than baby talk which always goes down well) to relay to our growers, the fact that the sterling has improved ever so slightly against the euro was about as much as I could come up with initially. Still, everyone seemed very happy with the 2009 vintage and there is little doubt that these charming wines have great commercial appeal with plenty of up-front fruit and ripe, soft tannins. Although there are some slight regional variations, Italy seems to be on a particularly good run of vintages at the moment with 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 all producing wine of considerable class. Most growers could find very little to say about the 2009 vintage; temperatures were warm or hot in the summer although the humidity levels seemed to have been low, so there was little mildew. There was some rain at the ‘right times’ and sunny, cooler weather leading up to and during the harvest. The only gloom in the air seemed to surround Italy’s chances in the upcoming World Cup; perhaps the lack of corrective treatment needed in the vineyards has led to too much introspection about the national team’s chances. Certainly Mr Lippi has made some controversial omissions from his squad! The one area of vineyard work that does seem to have become necessary over the last two years is the need to prevent soil erosion brought about by heavy spring rains. We witnessed the results of this in 2009 and 2010 at very close quarters as soil came crashing down onto the road we were taking!

The Italians - well those from the north, which is where we source most of our wines from - seem both rattled and indignant that their country should be spoken of in the same eurocrash breath as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. They of course blame their idle and corrupt southern compatriots for the slur on national, economic honour. It seems to be of no consolation to them that a heavily indebted Britain might be next in the firing line. We can understand this sense of grievance as this is an industrious and inventive people, whose economy is underrated, because so much of it is ‘black’. Whatever we - the obedient, uptight British - may think of this fiscal way of life, it seems to work for the Italians, and there is everywhere a quiet hum of prosperity and affluence. One just needs to remember to ask for the obligatory ‘sconto’ for cash!


Andrew Higgs