International distributors of Australian wine

I have unfortunately discovered that my conundrum of how to find a good distributor Australian wine in Italy, with a respectable range is an ongoing one.

To give you an example, I’ll refer to some brief research I did yesterday on prices of Penfolds Bin 707, from the 90’s vintages. An email came through from British wine merchant Seckfords with some lots of 1993, 1994 and 1997 (I believe I recall) Penfolds Bin 707.

The lots, of six bottles, were available at a price of 50 pounds a bottle which isn’t a bad price. When buying from UK wine merchants most wines are offered duty paid meaning EU taxes are already included in the price, you don’t require any import numbers, no customs is to be paid on EU delivery and your only extra costs are delivery.

The 50 pounds turns out to be quite a reasonable price, but to come to this conclusion some investigation needed to occur. First of all I hopped onto the Robert Parker website to look at some vintage notes.

I’m not so interested in the points system, but I often find that Australian vintage notes are scarce and sometimes the site can be helpful on this front. It turns out that according to the site, the 1994 is the best bet for quality at this stage.

I then figured that there wouldn’t be much point in buying in the UK, if Italy had better availability, at comparable prices without the worry of organising a shipment.

I cannot, in all honesty, seriously comment on Austrade’s work in representing the interests of the Australian wine industry in Italy, so suffice to say they have a vino australiano website that lists the distributors of Australian wine in Italy.

Penfolds has an exclusive distributor in Italy, called Meregalli, who is conveniently holding a wine tasting day in Monza on Monday September 29. Despite the fact I’m supposed to be working that afternoon, I will endeavour to go.

But now price of a Bin 707 through Meregalli is listed, and there's no way of knowing whether they're a wholesaler or whether they also sell to the public.

So I also had a look at Peck, who sells at a whopping 143 euros for the 1998 vintage, and Enoteca Ronchi, who was reasonable enough at 126 euros for the 1993 vintage (over the hill?) and the 1997. The hunt continues...

Italian wine varieties: Gavi from Piedmont

I had a couple of friends stay with me over the last few days who, not only having bought me a nice bottle of merlot, introduced me to a new Italian wine that I never knew existed. And all this for a moment of Aussie humour.

My mate Gavin, in an excursion to the local supermarket, came across a wine called “Gavi” but decided not to buy it. On going out for dinner that evening, lo’ and behold! the wine was on the wine list.

After a bit of giggling at the wine table, we ordered the Gavi (changing the pronunciation from the Australian accent to something more likely to be comprehensible to the Italian waiter), and embarked on discovering an Italian variety I had never before encountered.

Gavi comes from the cortese grape, and the Piedmont region, province of Alessandria. The wine is DOCG classified and it is a white wine that I thought matched well to our food. Gavin reckoned it was like an Australian wine, and I think he was probably referring to how fragrant it was.

The merlot that was given to me is “La gioiosa et amorosa” from the Polegato family. This is an easy drinking wine, soft like a merlot should be and not as thin as most of the other more budget versions of this grape I’ve tried in Italy.

As I lack the memory of the producer of the Gavi we tried, I have resolved to carry a notebook with me everywhere I go that I’m likely to be wine tasting so I keep track of this stuff. But it’s likely to go on my list of wine white purchases in Italy and I recommend it, particularly if you’re looking for white wine options from Piedmont.