Everyone’s talking about...
Tignanello wine
Why is it in the news? WHEN Boris Johnson was asked earlier this week to name his favourite wine he scratched his head before spluttering ‘Tignanello’. It was a rather trendy choice — and is loved so much by the Duchess of Sussex, pictured below, that she called her (now defunct) blog after it: The Tig. Is that the vino Boris spilt over his girlfriend’s sofa? POSSIBLY. But don’t for a second think Tignanello is cheap — it will set you back £100 to £140 a bottle. So was she upset about the waste of good wine or the stains on her sofa? NOBODY knows. And Boris is unlikely to spill the beans as well as the wine. But what’s special about it? FORGIVE the wine-speak, but it’s one of those Tuscan reds that the longer it ‘breathes’, the more That’s a lot of flavours! YES. And it’s velvety, generous and approachable. If ever there was a seductive wine, this is it. A bit like Boris, then? STEADY on! Though it should be said that when Tignanello was created in 1971, it was an upstart. What’s its history? THE family behind it, the Antinoris, have been in the wine business in Tuscany since 1385. It was a pioneering ‘super-Tuscan’ wine, made in the Chianti Classico region by throwing out the rule book. And how does one do that? THEY dispensed with lowly local grapes and added two Bordeaux varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, to the Italian Sangiovese. Then they matured the wine in small French barrels. Is that revolutionary? IS BORIS ambitious? It was so revolutionary that although it’s made in the Chianti region it can’t be called Chianti. Instead, it’s a Vino da Tavola — table wine. A wine of the people, in other words . . . ABSOLUTELY — a wine of the people which very few people can afford. There’s a slogan there somewhere.