Valle d'Aosta is the smallest and least populated region in Italy, only one-eighth the Size of neighbouring Piedmont. It covers a mountainous area in the far northwest of Italy, where the country's borders meet those of France and Switzerland.
Despite the region's small size and low profile, a wide range of red and white wines are produced from a selection of native and introduced Grape varieties. The most important of these is Picotendro, the local form of Nebbiolo.
Aosta is clearly influenced by its neighbours. French is the second official language, and French grape varieties are just as common as Italian ones. Chardonnay and Gamay grow side by side with Nebbiolo and Dolcetto.
In addition to the best-known varieties, the Regional Agricultural Institute has listed a selection of indigenous regional varieties.
Acker announced in September that it had sold a six-litre bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s (DRC) ‘Romanée-Conti’ 2002 at a Hong Kong auction for nearly HK$3.1m (US$398,400). However, it’s understood that the sale of the bottle was subsequently cancelled. Doubts about the wine’s authenticity have been raised by lawyer and wine fraud expert Don Cornwell on the Wine Beserkers website. He also expressed concerns about another wine, a six-litre bottle of DRC Romanée-Conti 2000, which was origi ...
The researchers conducted a crossover trial featuring 217 UK households that drink wine on a regular basis. They were randomly given 290ml or 350ml glasses to drink from during the four-week study period. Researchers noted that wine consumption fell by 6.5% when those featured in the study were drinking from the smaller glasses. The trial also focused on bottle sizes. The households taking part in the survey spent two weeks drinking from full-sized 75cl bottles and two weeks drinking from half b ...
Moneypenny, James Bond, Q. Not a bad trio for your wine to share the screen with in its latest cameo. I’ll try not to give too many spoilers if you haven’t yet seen No Time To Die, but I don’t think it gives too much away to say that Bond can’t resist swiping two generous glasses of Château Angélus (2005, although you don’t see the vintage on screen) for himself and Moneypenny from a bottle that Q had carefully opened for his date later that night. This is the third Bond film in which Angélus ha ...