Italian red wine: The start of the affair

I was taught to admire and respect, even revere, the great red wines of France: the growths of Bordeaux, the crus of Burgundy, Hermitage, Côte Rotie. No one taught me to admire Italian red wines; I simply fell in love with them.

The prelude to the affair was a wine tasting hosted by the occasional group of shippers and experts called Forum Vinorum in London in 1987, masterminded by Nicholas Belfrage MW. This was a revelation — or a series of revelations. Valpolicella, at least as made by Quintarelli, did not have to be the thin insipid stuff which had given us hangovers and heartburn at student discos, but could have marvellous depth and purity of fruit. Bardolino from Guerrieri Rizzardi was capable of red cherry freshness and bite, not just sourness.

Then there were the exciting, precise Chiantis made by Paolo de Marchi at Isole e Olena, as far away from the pale-coloured and indifferent stuff presented in straw-covered fiaschi as you could imagine, and pure Brunello from Altesino not aged for too long in unhygienic barrels.

The affair was consummated during a wonderful May week in 1988 — the Tuscan landscape exuberantly lush after a damp spring, and positively slithering with snakes — when I visited producers spread out over the intricate hilly landscape between my temporary base, the small estate of Castel Ruggero near Florence, and the villages close to Siena, which produce perhaps the best Chiantis of all.

Chianti is not soft, either as a wine or as a landscape. The greatest Chiantis are grown on steep stony hillsides sometimes very near the limit at which vines can thrive. The best I think have a certain minerally toughness, a rasp of acidity, but not too much of either; warmth and generosity of fruit must be part of the picture too.