Italian Vineyards
With over a thousand grape varieties and producing a fifth of the world’s wines, Italy is without doubt one of the world’s heavyweight wine producers. Yet, within the vastness of this total wine output, there are formidable artisan wine makers to discover.
With only a handful of regions visited so far, there is still so much of Italy yet to discover. Those gems will find their way to Neeche but in the meantime acquaint yourself with some of the most passionate and friendly vintners that I have been so fortunate to meet and call friends.
French Vineyards
France…the spiritual home of wine? Many would suggest so and I find it hard to disagree but that is in part due to our upbringing where Wine and France were synonymous with each other.
France may well be the Old Duke of European winemaking but as I began to dig deeper, I was lucky enough to discover a new generation of vintners more comfortable embracing wine with a sense of fun, a more collaborative spirit and more prepared to experiment with new methods. With France, you are only ever scratching the surface but that means your search for great wine will, most likely, be a never ending journey. What fun waits…
Spanish Vineyards
Spanish wine once had that reputation as a throwback to wines of the old world but it has undergone a great transformation in recent decades. Producers are increasingly recognising the versality of their grapes and moving away from their traditional oak barrel based production towards more modern methods involving more maturation taking place in steel tanks. Having the courage to let their grape varieties speak for themselves. Tempranillo may the be the dominant variety but I am so excited to discover wines from the lesser known regions such as Priorat in Catalunya and bring you refreshing whites like Albariño and the lovely minerality of Txakoli from the northern Basque region.
