Pasqua Passimento 2010 750ml

Winery: Pasqua

Varietal: Corvina Blend

The Corvina varietal grape has been long associated with the region of Veneto in Italy, where it is a native varietal which flourishes in the warm and windy climate of this area. In recent decades, it has been planted in several New World countries, where wine makers are often experimenting with traditional Italian varietals in an attempt to emulate their fine wines. Corvina grapes are a key ingredient in several of Italy's best known and most loved wines, including Amarone and Valpolicella, two excellent aged red wines which make the most of Corvina's high acidity levels and wonderful flavors of almond and sour cherry. The Corvina grape has plenty of pigment in its thick skins, resulting in quite a vivid crimson colored wine – an attribute which is also widely celebrated by vintners across the world.

Region: Puglia

The southern Italian region of Puglia, known as the 'heel' of the country, is home to Italy's most up and coming wineries, keen to demonstrate to the world that the poor reputation they had in the seventies and eighties no longer applies. The wines of Puglia are certainly full of character, often big, bright and juicy, and full of strong dark fruit flavours. The Puglian wines are also renowned for being slightly more alcoholic and structured than those found further north, giving wine drinkers plenty to experience and discuss when sampling the region's complex and fascinating wares. Puglia is, in essence, a region of deep traditions, and the wine makers there are determined to stick to their traditional techniques and methods, and keep the unique identity of Puglian wine alive in the twenty first century.

Country: Italy

Italy is recognised as being one of the finest wine producing countries in the world, and it isn't difficult to see why. With a vast amount of land across the country used primarily for vineyard cultivation and wine production, each region of Italy manages to produce a wide range of excellent quality wines, each representative of the region it is produced in. Any lover of Italian wines will be able to tell you of the variety the country produces, from the deliciously astringent and alpine-fresh wines of the northern borders, to the deliciously jammy and fruit-forward wines of the south and the Italian islands. Regions such as Barolo are frequently compared with Bordeaux and Burgundy in France, as their oak aged red wines have all the complexity and earthy, spicy excellence of some of the finest wines in the world, and the sparkling wines of Asti and elsewhere in Italy can easily challenge and often exceed the high standards put forward by Champagne. Thanks to excellent terrain and climatic conditions, Italy has long since proven itself a major player in the world of wines, and long may this dedication to quality and excellence continue.