WITH TONY LOVE

When you open the book on Australiangrown alternative wine varieties, one of the hottest names at the moment is Fiano, which originates from the southern Italian region of Campania, inland from Naples. It’s a variety that seems to like our warmer and drier wine districts, as well as the Adelaide Hills and Clare Valley.

While last week I looked at another white variety with Italian connections, pinot grigio (and gris), which has progressed into our mainstream wine catalogues, fiano is still very much in adventure mode for growers, winemakers and consumers.

Firstly, a quick pronunciation note: it’s “fee-arno” and not as if you were saying piano. Next, most experts describe it as a “strongly flavoured” white, so step out of your pinot grigio mind set if you decide to give fiano a go.

After tasting a fair range from mostly South Australia and northern Victoria, where it’s planted more than elsewhere, it’s fair to say you should expect to come across a range of fruit flavours from ripe pear to fresh pineapple, with more complex elements such as candied or a saline preserved lemon rind note, bitter lemon, almond meal and marzipan, as well as that nuttiness developing some honeyed character with a few years’ age.

And like a lot of the new Italian whites, there’s one more descriptor that can defy sensory perceptions.

Winemakers tend to talk a fair bit about “texture” when the subject of fiano or another new Australian white variety, vermentino, arises.

Sure we’re talking about mouthfeel, but how exactly do we experience this? In many versions you’ll get a sense of milkiness or creaminess. It’s more tactile than silk, but not as grippy or dry as black tea tannins. It’s a bit like marzipan, both in texture and flavour. One of the best single word impressions is “waxy” and I find myself favouring that response.

Two of the pioneer producers of fiano have learnt a lot in the past decade to tease such textures out of their wines: Chalmers, based in northern Victoria’s Heathcote region, craft many Italian varieties among them their fiano and blends (try the Montevecchio 2017 Bianco), which show all the typical characters discussed here.

Coriole 2017 Fiano also delivers on the expected pear, lemon rind, saline and native bush floral characters we’ve come to expect, as well as bringing a creamy, milky palate presence that still has a subtle grip to give it a role at the table beside pasta and light creamy sauces, even pesto. BOTTLE STOP