Seven centuries is a long time to be in business and the Frescobaldi family continues its 700+ year wine production in Tuscany, which began in the early 1300s. The family's wines have formed commercial contracts with European courts, the Papal Court in Rome and have been widely exported around the world for centuries. Now, we have a growing range of Frescobaldi wines available at Regional Wines & Spirits, including wines from great historic estates such as Castello Nipozzano and Tenuta Perano. These famous Tuscan wine estates are home to high quality Sangiovese grapes (and a mix of others), which go into these two...

Never let a little thing like pronunciation get in the way of deliciousness. Verdicchio is a case in point.  Ver-deek-ee-oh is the correct pronunciation, for those concerned about such matters, but most Italians are just happy that you have chosen one of their wines and tried to say the word. It's worth taking the plunge in this case and as we have a new addition to our Verdicchio range at Regional, it seems worth diving a little into what makes this white wine taste so good.  The name refers to the grape, which comes from central Italy and specifically from the...

We’ve been delving into the wild world of hops of late and trying to focus on individual strains through single hop beers.However, let’s face it, hops are typically served in a fruit salad style, layered on top of each other in an attempt to maximise complexity and balance bitterness versus flavour. In fact, there are a few key hops that basically come bundled together, and when they do, they drive styles and even offer a glimpse of the notion of terroir (oh no - I’ve gone and mentioned the T word again!).I’m thinking of the English ale hops, the noble...

What’s the most important thing about the beer you drink? Is it the malt, the water or the hops? I’m guessing a fair few of you will be leaning towards the word hops because, at the end of the day, the world of beer is currently pretty damn hop obsessed. And perhaps rightly so.What’s nice about this current fascination, is that we are seeing more and more transparency surrounding the hops used in many of the beers we love. They pop up incorporated in beer names and are fully featured in tasting notes. We’re becoming well versed in what different...

Antinori is the oldest continuous working winery in the world, not in the sense of being only in one place either. The Tuscany based Italian winemaking family may have been making wine for 27 generations now, but today they also own wineries in the north of Italy in Piemonte and Friuli as well as further afield. You name a place. They have a winery there. As of six years ago, Stag’s Leap in California was added to the Antinori stable, which also includes wineries in Washington State, Hungary, Chile and in Kyrgyztan, which is though to be the original place that...