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Summary

Superstar Italian winemaker Alberto Antonini tells us about wine as meditation, how to be a ‘virtual’ wine consultant, his vinyl collection and his nonna’s wise advice on how to stop a mole-hill becoming a mountain. (Her version involves an ant and an elephant.)

In Alberto’s honour, we crack open two wines from Sicily, delving into this most exciting of Italian wine regions – and discuss the hot topic of vegan wine.

‘Wine is changing from simply being part of a meal … to an experience’ Alberto Antonini

Running Order

• Introduction: 0 – 10.09
• Interview with Alberto Antonini: 10.10 – 25.22
• On Sicilian wine: 26.23 – 30.57
• On vegan wine: 30.58 – 36.15
• END: 36.38

‘You don’t have to make a wine for the market. You have to find a market for your wine.’ Alberto Antonini

Starring

• Alberto Antonini
• Susie and Peter

‘Seeing Florence empty – it’s pretty sad. It’s difficult at this stage to understand how bad it could be. We are at the very beginning.’ Alberto Antonini

Featured wines

• Fabrizio Vella Catarratto 2018 Sicily, 11%
• Santa Tresa Rosato di Santa Tresa 2019, 13%

Notes

• In this episode, Peter tries to do an Italian accent. Susie reckons it’s a cross of Chilean, Russian and Portuguese. See what you think…
• Apologies to Hugh Johnson OBE, who seems to have been written out of history when we refer to The World Atlas of Wine. Sorry, Hugh.
• Tune in to hear our Desert Island Wine selections (translation: hear a marriage breakdown) on The Wine Society’s Instagram Live at 6pm on Thursday 25th June.
• On which note, is there an emoji for rotten tomatoes?! Just a thought.
• At one point Peter seems to say there were only 3 or 4 ‘bottles’ of Etna wine in the 1980s. What he really meant was ‘bottlers’.
• Don’t miss Peter’s piece on Lighter Wines for Summer Drinking in the September edition of Decanter magazine (out in August).
• Alberto’s family farm is Poggiotondo. Not Poggio del Tondo.
• Please send us in your thoughts, opinions and questions about vegan wine! Use the orange SpeakPipe button, as below. Easy as pie…
• Finally, we recommend (and quote from) the book Volcanic Wines by John Szabo MS. Here’s the pic, as promised:

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