A wine that never fails to impress, from its eye-catching name and stunning bottle, to the full open thick plum scents, its rounded rich fruit taste and elegant tannins. More stringent harvesting, usually taken two weeks later than the usual Monte, and from vines with a little more age. Same fermentation in stainless steel, but barrique ageing is done in 20 litres casks as opposed to 60. So a little more oak, but also we then allow more time for bottle age for the oak and the fruit to come together. Both go through natural malolactic fermentation, so adding to the smoothness. Lovely wine and the bottle looks so good too, makes the perfect present, even if you’re sending it to yourself.

So another Bianca Trading producer and of course it’s another superb family operation who’ve been doing the business for so many generations. They live in the foothills of the Abruzzi. Pasetti have been doing this for years - they’ve slowly found that the vineyards in the foothills of the wild Gran Sasso are the best,valley of Trino and Pescara. They do care, about all they do. They have changed their labelling, it looks so super stylish now, but the wine also they have continued to improve. The Abruzzi has the climate and the grapes to hit the heights and it can do gorgeous medium priced gear.

Domenico Pasetti is president of the local association of agriculturalists, so he’s interested, as you would be living there, in all forms of agriculture, the land, its produce and he makes a very good case for paying proper prices for real schmutter. So stump up the shreddies. Laura his wife fronts up the stands at the trade shows and shouts at us for more cash. We try, put come on, times is hard, can we have just a little more wine……..