Does Castello di Ama’s owner Lorenza Sebasti Pallanti (left) really model herself on Madame Mentzelopoulos, Ch. Margaux’s glamorous owner?  Or perhaps she just fashions her wines on the famed Bordeaux First Growth, a taste of whose 1961 back in 1989 changed her appreciation of wine forever… But surely her family’s fine Castello di Ama property had […]

Back in early October I was treated to a visit from one of South Africa’s bright young gems, Mullineux Wines, Swartland: Chris, Andrea and their first born John (‘JZ’). This is their account.   After a somewhat long and difficult trip from Amsterdam (visa issues- it’s not easy travelling as a South African sometimes!), my […]

So what began with a farce: ‘Don Pasquale’ at Turin’s La Regio…culminated, tragically so with a mesmerizing performance of ‘La Traviata’ on late Sunday afternoon.   And no, the interim wasn’t all ice-cream & chocolates but a privileged insight into another world; a world free of traffic lights, bungalows and political correctness but full of charm, […]

In my penultimate report on the successful 2009 Barolo and Barbaresco harvest I interview Giuseppe and his mother Maria Teresa Mascarello in their Santo Stefano di Perno vineyard, Monforte. It speaks volumes that this iron-rich, sandy calcareous site should picked last among their formidable stable of Barolo vineyards; later even than Monprivato and Ca d’Morissio. […]