Forte Alto Pinot Grigio Vigneti delle Dolomiti, Italy 2018 (£6.49, Waitrose) Things are looking bleak for pinot grigio. Supermarket sales of what was once the UK’s most popular white wine are in freefall: down 8% according to a recent piece reporting on an event dedicated to Pinot Grigio in the grape variety’s northeastern Italian heartland in the wine trade magazine, Harpers. Drinkers are no longer so taken with the kind of mild crispness that was once greeted as the antidote to old-style chardonnay’s buttery woodiness. They’ve switched to the more aromatically arresting sauvignon blanc, or the bubbles of another northeast Italian speciality, prosecco. But while it may be true that too much pinot grigio tastes like it’s been made by teetotal messiahs with the gift of turning wine into water, it would be sad if wines such as Forte Alto disappeared from our shelves: they may not scream big flavour, but their subtle floral-herbal freshness can be oh so appealing.
Taste the Difference Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Italy 2018 (£8, Sainsbury’s) Subtlety and unobtrusive food-friendliness are qualities that are too often overlooked when wines are ranked in competitions and headline-grabbing blind tastings, where intensity and loudness of fruit flavour tend to rack up the medals and trophies. But when we actually sit down to eat, it’s often the quieter white wines that work best – an insight that has long been common knowledge among Italian winemakers. Of course – as the story of pinot grigio shows – the boundary between subtle and bland is easily blurred. Still, Italy is definitely my first port of call when I’m looking for a reasonably priced midweek white that will sit with fish, or something with a creamy sauce, or brassica-based simple pasta dishes. Among my current easily available favourites are two from Sainsbury’s: from the Marche, Taste the Difference Verdicchio Classico 2018 (£7) is crisp, green, coolly refreshing; while the Tuscan Vernaccia is softer with gentle notes of pear, lemon and herb.
Monte Tondo Soave Classico, Italy 2018 (£13, Pull the Cork; Harrogate Fine Wine) They may lead the world in the art of the deliberately unshowy and quite good, but Italian white winemakers are also capable of wines of bigger personality, depth and verve – wines that impress in a glass on their own, although the best never sacrifice the fluency that makes them work with food. Soave, which has had its own pinot grigio-like problems with consistency and sometimes watery blandness, is increasingly coming up with some of Italy’s best white wines: there’s a lovely interplay between rounded texture, stone-fruited richness and herb-and-nut bitterness in Monte Tondo’s Soave Classico, for example. In the south, I’m a big fan of the characterful falanghina variety from Campania, which is behind the peachy fleshiness, zingy citrus and summer garden-in bloom floral character of Tesco Finest Falanghina del Sannio 2018 (£9) and the pristine stone-fruit and mandarin orange-zesty swell of Mastroberadino Morabianca Irpinia Falanghina 2017 (£18.95, bbr.com).
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