A few weeks ago I mentioned I’d been on a wine buying trip to Italy. It was a rewarding piece of Good Wine Hunting and worth writing more about.

Sometimes customers gaze at our crowded shelves and cry, “Do you travel to all these wineries to buy direct?” Sadly the answer is no. We currently list wines from 14 countries, and in most cases from multiple regions. That might be four or five regions in Chile, say, and 25 in France. If I were to visit all of them I’d be travelling constantly and never in the shop. Luckily, we have a network of tried and tested importers that we buy from. Different importers specialise in different areas or styles of wine – the south of France, say, or organic wine – and by getting to know their ranges we have access to a huge array of wines that we could never access if buying direct.

The most common way to get to know the importers’ ranges is by attending their portfolio tastings in Edinburgh or Manchester or London. We go to seven or eight of these every year, in spring and autumn. But the best way to understand what an importer can offer is to travel with them to a region they specialise in, meet with winemakers, walk the vineyards, taste the wine, and sample the local food. Sadly, the opportunity to do this only comes round once every two or three years. But when it does I always try and take up the offer: more can be learned in a few intense days on the ground than in a month reading books, watching videos, and studying wholesalers’ catalogues.

That was certainly the case when one of our importers, an Italian specialist, fly me to Abruzzo in east-central Italy at the end of June. Abruzzo is not a big tourist destination like Tuscany or Rome, and having visited it I can see why. On the western horizon the snowy peaks of the Apennine mountains. To the east a jagged coastline of black rocks, sun-bleached cliffs, and a few sandy coves. Inbetween, a narrow strip of cultivated land and a ribbon of roads connecting the great agricultural plains of Puglia with the cities of the north.

There are some picturesque hilltop villages on the plateaus that slope up to the Apennines, but down by the coast the towns are dominated by concrete. Many of them had to be rebuilt after the area was devastated during World War II. The Battle of Ortona, fought over Christmas 1943, was particularly destructive, and involved fierce fighting between Canadian and German troops. There are numerous monuments to the victorious Canadians around the town, including a Sherman tank parked in the middle of a roundabout. A couple of miles south sits a large modern building with a giant vine motif black against its red stone: the cellars of Fantini, whose wine I had come all this way (and learned all this military history) to sample.

I could write a dozen columns about this company, but the brief version would be like this: founded in 1994 by Valentino Sciotti and two friends, a group known as the Three Dreamers. The dream was to start a high quality winery despite having no land of their own and no money. The followed a route that was very rare in this traditional part of Italy. They sought out the best grapes grown by other people, mostly small family farmers, and persuaded them to sell fruit to the Dreamers, rather than to the local co-operative who would make it into cheap plonk.

The Dreamers then crafted beautiful, high quality wine, packaged it in bottles with beautiful, eye-catching labels, and waited…

Nothing happened.

Till one day, when they were close to despair, legendary American wine critic Robert Parker ordered a glass of house red and was given a wine so full-flavoured and harmonious that he insisted there must be some mistake. But no, this was indeed the house: a new wine from a small maker in an obscure part of Italy. Its name? Edizione, by Fantini.

From that point, Fantini’s reputation and commercial success grew steadily, until now, 30 years later, they make several million bottles a year, are distributed around the world, and have won endless critical acclaim. The wine that first brought them fame, Edizione, is as impressive as ever. Sadly, it’s no longer priced at house wine levels – more like a special birthday level. On the other hand, their simpler wines that celebrate the native grapes of Abruzzo –Trebbiano for white and Montepulciano for red – are affordable and reliably delicious.

The Trebbiano goes perfectly with seafood served in a style of restaurant unique to Abruzzo. Called traboccos, they are former fishing huts – on stilts, 50 metres off the coast, connected by a gangplank – with open sides and a tiny kitchen in the centre. There’s fresh fish on your plate and live fish swimming beneath your feet.

The single most characteristic dish of Abruzzo, though, is perfect with Montepulciano. Arrosticini are wooden skewers about 20cm long, filled with small cubes of marinated lamb, which are quickly charcoal grilled so they char slightly at the edges but remain juicy in the centre.

If you want to try these dishes at home, Orkney can supply the seafood and lamb, and Abruzzo (via Kirkness & Gorie) can supply the wine!

Fantini produce a wide range of other excellent wines, beyond the three I focus on here. They now have wineries in Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia, as well as their native Abruzzo. All of them use grapes native to their respective areas and unknown elsewhere, e.g. Monica from Sardinia, Nero di Troia from Puglia. In addition to their quality and value for money, this regional character really makes Fantini’s wines stand out.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 7th August 2025. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations, and occasional small corrections or additions.

Diary of a Shopkeeper, 3rd August