Travelling with wine: sending wine to Australia, part one

I’m currently undergoing my first attempt to post wine to Australia from Italy which could prove to be a hilarious exercise in showing that the Italians, unfortunately, are really a disorganised race.

I believe Italy is a country unparalleled in its rich offering of wines – it has truly everything, not always at high quality but if you go exploring, you will find some real wine gems in Italy. So the first step, and the hardest, was deciding what to send.

I settled with a slightly eclectic and simple mix that wasn’t too expensive, bearing in mind I couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t be confiscated by Australian customs. So currently sitting in Alexandria airport, Sydney are a couple of bottles of Greco di Tufo and Taurasi, grape varieties of Greco and Aglianico from Campania; and a couple of bottles of Valtellina nebbiolo as that’s my home ground in Italy.

You may think I wasted my choice, but I believe they will still be appreciated and as they’re destined for under the Christmas tree (or in the cellar where they probably won’t stay for long), we’re about drinking and sharing here, not impressing. Depending on success, more significant bottles may be destined for future shipment.

Australian customs has done the usual routine enquiries regarding alcohol shipments and here’s hoping that they wines will soon be released to the family. In which case, the shipment to Australia via Italian post/FedEx was simpler than the shipment of the wines from Campania to Milan. Why? Because the first transporter got the address wrong.

They decided to ignore all instructions and instead of delivering to my house, delivered to English school I used to work at in the same building who, luckily knowing me, decided to sign for the wine anyway. My former colleagues then forgot to inform me that six bottles of wine were sitting on the classroom floor, and I came across them one evening when I popped in to say hello.

The response from the transporter: when were they going to get around to telling me as they had their entire network searching for the whereabouts of the wine...? My response: perhaps you should have delivered them to the correct address in the first place. On my pointing this out, the guy on the phone politely wished me a pleasant evening, and promptly hung up. Episode two on the eventual whereabouts of the wine will continue this week.

Wine tasting in Italy: Conti Sertoli Salis in the Valtellina

While this shouldn’t be a blog about “what I did on my weekend”, when that has been wine tasting or cellar visits, then I figure I can include it. Two events I’ve been to recently have been quite different one from the other, and have certainly taught me if not about wine, then about people.

A while ago I had the pleasure of a cellar visit and wine tasting in Italy, in Lombardy’s Valtellina region. The evening was organised by the Italian sommeliers association at the Conti Sertoli Salis company, in the old palace of the noble family’s original house.

The wine tasting was one of old vintages of Salis wines which, typical of this region, use the nebbiolo grape. While the first two wines were disappointing, a little over the hill in my opinion, the evening built up from the Valtellina Sforzato Canua, to the ‘grand cru’ from Salis – the Feudo dei Conti, in its first market release.

It was a pleasant enough evening, but I didn’t walk away having bought any wine. This is a problem given what we consider the purpose behind these wine tasting events to be. I just didn’t feel captured enough to purchase and the purported “old vintage” prestige was lost on me.

The thing that fascinates and disappoints me about Italy is its stubborn and undemocratic insistence on the aristocracy. While the current management of Conti Sertoli Salis doesn’t have much to do with the historic Italian Count family’s ownership, the material we were given on the night, and the website, is a lot about their prestigious and pedigree roots.

Can’t we just make good wine? This is a topic I will possibly return to, and it could be my stubborn insistence on Australian egalitarian values (sometimes an exercise in smoke screens with us, too). But given that the Conti Sertoli Salis representative at a recent wine tasting open to all sommelier members refused a friend of mine service of an expensive bottle (the Feudo dei Conti I suspect), as he wasn’t a distributor, I feel it’s pertinent to the discussion. Only an economic outcome was good enough to warrant a taste.

This is highly disappointing because the Valtellina, despite contrary accusations, is more friendly and welcoming than that; and frankly 54 euros for an un-established wine from the Valtellina is a price outside of the market norm. The Feudo dei Conti is a good wine, but it has to play the game in the valley as well.