Making the most of Italy’s endlessly dynamic wines clone

No wine place has the capacity to surprise quite like Italy does. That’s not always a good thing, I should probably add, since some of those surprises are nobody’s idea of fun. There are bad wines everywhere in the world, but Italian offenders can be particularly offensive, and are available in every type of bad-wine genre, from the industrial-bland to the outrageously barnyard-stinky and the aggressively tannic.

But for the most part, Italy’s capacity to surprise is almost entirely benign. The wine scene there is so multifarious and dynamic (more than 400 protected wine regions known as DOCs and DOCGs; more than 500 indigenous grape varieties, tens of thousands of winegrowers and makers) it can bring on a severe case of fomo. No matter how often I visit Italy, or how many wines I try, there’s always another previously unheard-of bottle that would quite happily become my new favourite thing.

Fomo, or decision fatigue, is one of the risks any Italophile will take when browsing the list at one of the very best places to buy Italian wine in the UK, the London-based independent merchant Lea & Sandeman, which, as well as its four shops in some of the smarter areas of the capital, sells across the country via its website, leaandsandeman.co.uk. Italian wines are enough of a speciality at L&S for the firm to host a tasting featuring 33 producers, covering 17 regions from Alto Adige in the far Alpine northeast to the Campania Puglia, and Sicily in the south. And the hit-rate, as I can confirm after visiting this year’s event at the Royal Academy in Picadilly last month, is always consistently high.

The L&S Italian range has its share of highly prized collectibles from Italy’s most famous fine-wine regions and cult stars: estates such as Le Macchiole, which offers an impeccable, seamless take on the swish Bordeaux’-esque style of Bolgheri on the Tuscan coast; or Sottimano, in Barbaresco in Piedmont, with red wines that delight in the nebbiolo variety’s trademark tension between power and ethereal grace; or Fuligni, makers of some deep, intense, but enchantingly refined Brunello di Montalcino reds south of Siena in Tuscany.

But some of my favourite wines at the tasting were the less obviously ambitious or expensive bottlings made by those starry producers. Ca’ La Bionda in the Veneto region in Italy’s northeast, for example, is probably best known for its unusually elegant take on the often forcefully rich and dried-grape reds of Amarone (such as the stunning Ca’La Bionda Amarone Classico 2019; £53.95, or £47.95, as part of a case). But I could imagine drinking (and being able to pay for) a lot more of their delightfully pale, pretty, red-cherry-and-pomegranate-racy Valpolicella Classico 2024 (£20.50, or £18.50 as part of a case). I also loved whites from either end of the peninsula: the mouthfillingly fleshy, orange-grove-scented Kratos Fiano 2024 from coastal Campania (£27.50, or £24.50 as part of a case) and the pristine, blistering Manni Nössing Riesling 2024 from Alto Adige (£25.95, or £22.95 as part of a case).

Another L&S wine – the latest delightful release of Elisa Semino’s exquisitely textured dry white La Colombera Timorasso Derthona 2024 (£27.95, or £24.95 as part of a case) – is also part of an exciting Italian offer going live at The Wine Society later this month. As with L&S, the offer includes some superb wines from big names such as Gianni Brunelli (Brunello di Montalcino) and Famiglia Anselma (Barolo). But I’d be putting my funds towards two lesser-spotted lighter reds. Both the violet-scented, peppery soft strawberry of Marco Sara Schioppettino 2023 (£21, thewinesociety.com) from Friuli, and the cranberry, medlar, and pomegranate, and subtle earthiness of Maccario Dringenberg Rossese di Dolceacqua 2024 (£28), offer more than enough idiosyncratic Italian charm to be my next big favourite things.