Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Sia in the counting house ... Damn statistics ... Federal Court mandarins inability to count ... Revising figures for money spent on internal legal services ... Answers squeezed out by questions at Senate Estimates ... Transparency ... From our FCA roundsman Phil Cake ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


The rotten fruit issue ... Corruption busters busted for bias, concealment, and conflicts … Mistress of the office couch more damaged than the rape victim … Next round for Linda Reynolds … Reputation damaged by former attorney general … Miranda Devine smooches Trump ... Read on >> 

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

From the cutting room floor...Handsy Heydon goes to Perth ... Celebrity tour ... Conferenceville ... Dicey's job application speech from 2002 ... Other High Court judges mocked as "vegetables" ... Mason CJ ridiculed ... Speech bowdlerised for public consumption ... Courage of conviction MIA ... From our National Affairs Correspondent ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian's Bloggers

Letter from London ... Weather report ... Starmer sinking ... Farage rising ... Fake law firm ... Fake cases ...  NHS employee cleans up with woke case for hurt feelings ... Floyd Alexander-Hunt files from Blighty ... Read more >> 

"And I want to just thank everybody and in particular, God, I want to just say we love you, God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you." 

Donald Trump at the White House announcing the bombing of Iran ... June 21, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Holding onto Hope ... Gina Rinehart's Bleak House ... Seeking chunks of the huge iron ore pit, Hope Downs ... Tracing the tangled Wright, Hancock, Rinehart litigation ... Allegations of fraud against the family trust ...Manoeuvring ... Tax "advice" ... Shifting vesting date ... Money, the root of unhappiness ... Anthony-James Kanaan reports ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

The High Court of Queensland ... Where to now for Bookshelves Brandis? ... Banana Benders in charge ... Eleven names scratched by CJ from Sunshine silks list ... Prosecutors dominate NSW Dizzo appointments ... Farewell to Equity Queen ... What life looked like nine years ago ... From Justinian's Archive, December 2, 2016 ... Read more >> 


 

 

« Algorithmic injustices | Main | Winners and grinners »
Tuesday
Feb272024

Veneto Verona Vino

Know your Valpolicellas ... Justinian's wine correspondent let loose in the vineyards of Veneto ... Thomas Becket and Mozart get together ... The perfect drop with stew and polenta ... Lots going on in the mouth ... Gabriel Wendler gets back to Italy  

After a ten-year absence it was time to return to Italy. This time to Verona and the Veneto viticultural region of northeast Italy that also comprises Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

The wonderful city of Verona, bisected by the Adige river, lies in the Veneto.

Shakespeare, who never left England, wrote two fictitious plays set in Verona: Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, a romantic comedy about infidelity.  

Tourists cram the small cul-de-sac adjacent to the Piazza Erbe and marvel at the famous balcony where Romeo and Juliet supposedly declared their inviolable love for each other.

There are more compelling curiosities in Verona.

The Arco Della Costa, an archway with a very large, suspended whale bone leads into the Piazza die Signory, where historically lawyers once gathered. Legend has it the whale bone will fall when an honest person passes under it.  

The Chiesa Santo Tomaso Becket is one of the many astonishing churches to be found in Verona - dedicated to Archbishop Becket, martyred by Henry II. 

The author - with bottlesIt is home to a magnificent baroque grand organ which, according to the records, was played by the boy Mozart in 1769. Mozart was so enamoured by the quality of the instrument that he carved his initials into it.

Meantime, his imperious father, Leopold, was hawking the genius chosen by God around Europe like a performing circus monkey. 

From curiosities to viticulture the Veneto demonstrates a broad range of wine styles categorised as Valpolicella, Soave and Bardolino. 

Corvina, referred to as Corvina Veronese alongside Molinari, Rondinella and Garganega are the principal indigenous grape varieties of the region.

It was not until the early 1980s that internationally Italian wine began to be taken seriously. Today, some of the most outstanding and sought after wines are Italian.

In the Veneto names such as Masi, Allegrini, Bertani, Castaneda and Buglioni, are among the leading growers and winemakers producing world class wine. 

Wine producers in Tuscany, Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, Trentino, Friuli-Venezia, Umbria, Emilia-Romagna and in particular Sicily, are also producing wines of outstanding commercial quality.  A general Italian wine renaissance has occurred since the early 1980's. 

There styles of Valpolicella, conveniently described as basic, are Valpolicella Ripasso, Recioto della Valpolicella, and Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone.       

Recioto della Valpolicella Amarone, Veneto's famous and unique wine that, unlike other Valpolicellas, is subjected to passito - a process or method that concentrates sugar and flavours by semi-drying the grapes over some four months. 

Vinification consumes all residual sugar leaving the wine completely dry and significantly alcoholic, between 15.5-16%.

Amarone della Valpolicella has a corpulent mouth feel and powerful, complex black stone fruit dimensions, in a way reminiscent of an aged Barossa old vine shiraz. Surprisingly, the high alcohol is not intrusive, unlike some heavy Australian clarets that invoke a hot tin shed. 

Hot - like some Australian clarets

Pastis Sada de Manzo con polenta is a traditional Verona dish - unlikely to be available at any trattorias near you. Amarone is the perfect wine with this dish as it complements the richness of the stew and the simplicity of the polenta.

Valpolicella Ripasso is made by placing the fermented wine in casks containing the lees from a prior batch of Amarone and left for up to three weeks to promote colour, body, and complexity. It is sometimes unfairly described as the poor cousin of Valpolicella Amarone .

Most impressiveRecioto Della Valpolicella can be sweet and sauterne- like.

Recioto di Soave die Capitelli, a dessert wine made also using the passito method, is a fabulous, fat, sweet wine suggestive of honey, cream, tropical fruits, and cinnamon.

Of the number of Amarone wines I sampled over six weeks in the Veneto I thought the Buglioni 2019 was the most impressive. 

Italy once ruled the known world. In a sense she still does in the areas of food, wine, engineering, fashion, design, film, art, and architecture. 

Her most regrettable historical blemishes were the dictatorship of Mussolini and, during the unification of Italy, Giuseppi Garabaldi's decision to permit the Pope to retain the Vatican following abolition of the Papal States.

As the famous lexicographer, Dr Samuel Johnson, observed: "A man who has not been to Italy is always conscious of an inferiority." 

Gabriel Wendler is a criminal trial and appellate barrister at Seven Windeyer Chambers 

 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.