I first started in the UK wine industry in 1970, running bottling lines in east London for a very traditional wine company founded in 1667 called hedges and Butler.
Most of the everyday wine from Europe around then was either filthy or very dull, but the Italian bottled wines you could find mainly in Italian restaurants, Chianti, Valpolicella, Soave, Pinot Grigio, were sound and absolutely fine. At Hedges and Butler we decided to create a good quaffing wine, to be bottled here in the UK, a red, white and rosè. Because the bar we used to drink in after work was in Swallow Street, our bright marketing director came up with the “double entendre” (doppio senso) of Hirondelle, which is the French word for the bird swallow, and English for quaffing! A bit corny, I admit, but it sold twelve million bottles a yearand was better than the cheap Spanish “sauternes” and “burgundy” which was sold in pubs at that time.
We started by trying to source Hirondelle in northern Italy and found a supplier in Bolzano in the southern Tyrol, who was getting the wine locally and from Austria. The problem arose after a couple of years when sales had grown tremendously, and a diligent official in the Government noticed that we were importing more wine from Austria than the total production of the whole of Austria! Our friends in Bolzano had somehow decided to blend in similar wines from a much wider geography, and we ended up having to change all the labels and relabel the bottles to “Produce of Austria Hungary and Bulgaria”. The rules were somewhat flexible in those days.
Some of the best restaurants in the UK back in the 1970’s and 80’s all run by Italians, were great; honest, homemade cooking and often the wine was shipped from the region from where the proprietor came, food and wine were good and also good value. The ceilings of many restaurants were decorated with lots of hanging Chianti bottles in the wicker flasks from people like Ruffino, and the wine lists were short with nothing too expensive. I have to say there wasn’t a great deal of competition from English eateries at that time!Not much Italian wine was sold in the local off-licences and supermarkets were just beginning to all get a liquor licence.
In the 70’s Hedges and Butler decided that the growing demand for Italian wines was worth having a separate sales division, so they recruited a number of Italian salesmen, and a pretty sales girl who seemed to sell more than the men for some reason, starting an excellent trend for females in the wine trade. They also took on some great Italian producers; Bollafrom the Veneto, Scanavino from Piedmont, Ruffino from Tuscany, Umani Ronchi from Marche and Abruzzo, Gancia from Asti, and Corvo the first wines being exported from Sicily since the historic old Masala sweet wines. This was all very successful, the salesmen used to sell a lot to restaurateurs over a game of cards, whilst the sales girls would use their feminine charms. Two of the chaps who started this went on the found their own wine businesses, Ramo Nardone the head of the division founded Enotria, and Bruno Bertini went on to found Mondial Wines.
So what has happened since then? Well firstly the quality of wine making in Italy has gone on to get better and better, with super premium wines now being made to rival and surpass the very best in the world. Antinori was early in the UK for the very best wines with their superb Tignanello, and after the second war the Marquis Incisa della Roccetta started the passion for “Super Tuscan” made from French grape varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, with Tenuta San Guido’s Sassicaia which also started being sold to collectors and top restaurants. Now there are many wonderful blends of Merlot, Cabernet Franc with the local Sangiovese, and one of the most expensive wines in the world is the 100% Merlot, Masseto from the famous Ornellaia estate in Tuscany. Of course there are amazing world class wines now from all over the diverse climates and soils the length of Italy from the far north to the toe, and Sicily. Angelo Gaja’s and Aldo Conterno wines from Piedmonte, and now some fascinating wines like Taurausi from Campania made from an ancient grape variety called Aglianico, to name just a few of the exceptional quality wines coming out of Italy and available through the best UK wine merchants and on top restaurant lists.
The other huge innovation since the 1990’s is the boom in Prosecco which has now taken over the everyday glass of fizz market in the UK. Easy to drink, straight forward and reasonably priced it has real mass market appeal. But you must try to discover the truly great sparkling wines from northern Italy, if you haven’t yet. Franciacorta, south of Lake Garda and Trento DOC further north in the foothills of the Dolomites , are both made just like Champagne, and with the same grapes. I particularly love the fizz from Trentino, the magnificent Ferrari Sparkling Wines are some of the very best.
But whilst the selection of Italian wines has never been better and classier, I still love the occasional glass of Asti Spumante with some fresh fruit on a summer’s day. So refreshing and so low in alcohol at 5, who needs the terrible de-alcoholised wines that are appearing on shelves? Try Michele Chiarlo’s delicious Moscato AstiNivole, sold by Hallgarten Wines.
What better than to find a good Italian wine to go with good Italian food, we are so lucky now, we are even more spoiled for choice.
