Matthew's World of Wine and Drink

About Matthew's World of Wine and Drink.

This blog began as a record of taking the WSET Diploma, during which I studied and explored wines and spirits made all around the world. Having passed the Diploma and become a WSET Certified Educator, the blog has become much more: a continual outlet for my passion for the culture of wine, spirits, and beer.

I aim to educate in an informal, enlightening, and engaging manner. As well as maintaining this blog to track my latest enthusiasms, I provide educational tastings for restaurants and for private groups. Details can be found on the website, and collaborations are welcome.

Wine is my primary interest and area of expertise and this blog aims to immerse the reader in the history of wine, to understand why wine tastes like it does, and to explore all the latest news. At the same time, beer and spirits will never be ignored. 

For the drinker, whether casual or professional, today is a good time to be alive.

Lake Garda Wine Regions

Lake Garda Wine Regions

Matthew Gaughan
italy

I’ve just released two podcast episodes giving an overview of Italian grape varieties. There are so many, it’s not an exhaustive, comprehensive list—you can get Ian d’Agata’s book for that. But it covers the main varieties grown across the country, so I hope the two episodes serve as something of a “cheat sheet” for Italian grapes.

On top of that, at the Amarone tasting I attended and wrote about, there were—thankfully—a handful of white wines to sample afterwards. Often, it’s best to taste white wine after red as the acidity refreshes the palate and rinses out the tannins.

Amarone of course comes from the Valpolicella region and although there’s no white wine under the designation, there are nearby areas, most notably Soave and less famously Lugana. There are different varieties planted with unexpected names that need deciphering. As I keep saying, there’s always something new to learn about Italian wine.

lugana

Lugana straddles Veneto and Lombardia beneath Lake Garda. The beauty and fame of the lake make it a very popular tourist destination, but the wines are much lesser known. They are getting more traction, because they are quite lovely. The grape variety is Trebbiano di Lugana, which is confusing on two counts. Firstly, Trebbiano is the most planted white variety in Italy and produces very basic wines. Except that’s Trebbiano Toscana we’re talking about: varieties called Trebbiano may not actually be even remotely related. In fact, Trebbiano di Lugana may, like Trebbiano di Soave, be the same as Verdicchio which produces some of the finest white wines across Italy.

The wines of Lugana are wonderfully fresh and crisp, with a round, creamy palate, and take you straight to the banks of Lake Garda.

Wines to try: Zenato “San Bendetto” 2023; Tommasi “La Farnaci” 2025. These are two superb producers in general, and their wines from Lugana are perfect expressions.

bianco di custoza

This is a region whose wines get dismissed as neutral and boring; it’s also another region not found outside Italy that often. So it was a pleasant surprise to taste an interesting example from Cavalchina, called “Amedeo.” It’s an unusual blend: Garganega (the Soave grape), Fernanda (which is apparently a clone of Cortese, the Gavi grape in Piemonte), Trebbianello (a clone of Fruilano), and Trebbiano Toscano. It’s maybe not the most exciting wine, but it’s one that piqued my interest: the blend, the fresh, fun, lightly fruity style. Again, another wine which took me straight to Lake Garda.

Wine should always take you to the place they come from, and that’s exactly what these wines did: I could imagine having a glass looking across the beautiful blue of Lake Garda.

Amarone

Amarone
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