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Where to buy the best Italian wines on the high street? M&S food hall.
L-R: Giardini Veneto 2012; Chianti 2012; Lacrima di Morro d’Alba Le Marche Photo: PEARTREE
By Susy Atkins7:00AM BST 09 Sep 2013 1 Comment
If you imagine the average wine buyer (someone who chooses the wines for supermarket shelves) to be male, older, tweedy or wearing a lab coat, then let me introduce you to Jeneve Williams, a young New Zealander with long pinky-orange hair and neon clothes who joined Marks & Spencer in 2012. She’s not just a buyer – she’s a trained winemaker who travels to far-flung wineries putting together bespoke blends for the store.
Having studied winemaking at Roseworthy college in Australia, Williams is in charge of M&S wines from South America, Eastern Europe and, naturally, New Zealand, but her biggest impact has been on the Italian range. She inherited a good set from her predecessor, Jo Ahearne MW, and has built on it imaginatively, bringing in 24 diverse wines to make up what I reckon is the best Italian collection currently on the high street.
“I love Italy’s diversity: all those grape varieties, the new finds at every turn,” says Williams. She’s introduced unusual wines from the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, a rare dry Sicilian zibibbo, an exotically scented Le Marche lacrima red, and the low-alcohol Giardini (below).
And now there’s a chianti in a raffia flask – the sort that you turn into a candle holder (or used to) when it’s empty. It’s selling well. “The packaging is either a nostalgic nod or a new discovery, depending on your age!” she says. Next she’s scouring Calabria, Puglia and Sicily, where she describes herself as like “a kid in a candy shop”. Look out for what she picks and mixes.
TRY THESE…
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Sponsored Win a meal for two at Bibendum, London
Giardini Veneto 2012, Veneto (Marks & Spencer, £6.99)
Made from the obscure tai grape (aka friulano), with a little pinot grigio, this wine contains unfermented grape must to keep the alcohol at 9.5 per cent. Light, lemony, with an appley bite.
Chianti 2012 Villa Cerna, Tuscany (£9.99)
This is, as Williams says, “fun”: an easy-going, juicy red, all tangy cherries and strawberries, in an old-fashioned raffia flask. Candles at the ready.
Lacrima di Morro d’Alba, Le Marche (£11.99)
A lively, perfumed red with a whiff of Parma violets and bright, intense, fresh red-cherry fruit, this would be perfect with a fine ragù.
TIPPLE TIP juiced up…
The new Goldenberry juice drink from the South American producer Terrafertil contains 15 per cent physalis juice and is fresh, light and not too sweet. It makes a nice change from orange juice for breakfast. £3.99 for 1l from Holland & Barrett and planetorganic.com
via Wine Review: Meet Marks and Spencer's Jeneve Williams and her top Italian wines – Telegraph.
