At the Southern end of Lake Garda, just near the borders of the two Italian regions of Lombardia and Veneto, lies the town of Lugana. It is a reportedly beautiful area which attracts many visitors and is the centre of a small 'DOC' wine region devoted to the production of quality white wines,
The grape concerned is known as Turbiana or, alternatively, Trebbiano di Lugana which sounds like it should be the same as other Trebbianos grown in other parts of Italy. But this is Italy and we should not be surprised that there is no connection!
Week L (2014) Ca' Lojera, Lugana DOC 2013. Vinoteca Farringdon. £15.95
I will cut to the chase. I liked this very much. It had good lively aromas of citrus fruits and sweet melon which follow through into the palate. It is full bodied and smoothly refreshing. There is something of a fruit salad about it and I would say either nectarines or clementines are in the finish. The 13% abv is well integrated with the fruit and there is juicy acidity.
Lugana is a small area of around 1,300ha from which is produced ~12 million bottles annually, and that sounds a lot until you consider that Bordeaux knocks out about 800 million in the same time.
It is upsetting that in reading about this wine I came across a campaign using the hashtag #SaveLugana, because there is a scheme proposing to build a high speed railway right through the middle of the region. The original plan, hatched some twenty years ago, was to build a line to connect Lisbon to Kiev, but now appears to be limited to connecting Venice to Milan. Either way, if it goes ahead it will destroy up to one third of this area.
The area is already under consideration as a potential UNESCO world heritage site and those dependent on the local tourist industry are hoping this will add weight to the campaign. The campaigners believe that the proposed route need be shifted as little as 400 metres to use the existing line between Brescia and Verona, for a nine km stretch to avoid the possible destruction, but add four minutes to the improved journey time.
Why do I care? Well, partly that having just discovered this wine which I like I am disappointed to have stumbled upon a challenge to its future success, but more because it is a parallel to what is proposed should happen to the Chilterns to enable those desperate to get out of Birmingham and into London (or vice versa, which is even more puzzling) to do so with insufficient time to enjoy a decent breakfast which is, after all, one of the more compelling reasons to travel by train.
There are sensitive alternatives available to solve the problem of more quickly moving the people in A to B and the people in B to A (see Douglas Adams on the futility of by-passes; the same logic applies) and any of those should be selected in both of these cases, however, perhaps if all of the people in such a tearing hurry stopped off on the banks of Lake Garda and enjoyed both the view and a glass of wine they might find that there are better ways to live and we call all leave things as they are.
The petition to register support unfortunately closed on 27th November, but use of the #SaveLugana may still draw attention.
The grape concerned is known as Turbiana or, alternatively, Trebbiano di Lugana which sounds like it should be the same as other Trebbianos grown in other parts of Italy. But this is Italy and we should not be surprised that there is no connection!
I will cut to the chase. I liked this very much. It had good lively aromas of citrus fruits and sweet melon which follow through into the palate. It is full bodied and smoothly refreshing. There is something of a fruit salad about it and I would say either nectarines or clementines are in the finish. The 13% abv is well integrated with the fruit and there is juicy acidity.
Lugana is a small area of around 1,300ha from which is produced ~12 million bottles annually, and that sounds a lot until you consider that Bordeaux knocks out about 800 million in the same time.
It is upsetting that in reading about this wine I came across a campaign using the hashtag #SaveLugana, because there is a scheme proposing to build a high speed railway right through the middle of the region. The original plan, hatched some twenty years ago, was to build a line to connect Lisbon to Kiev, but now appears to be limited to connecting Venice to Milan. Either way, if it goes ahead it will destroy up to one third of this area.
The area is already under consideration as a potential UNESCO world heritage site and those dependent on the local tourist industry are hoping this will add weight to the campaign. The campaigners believe that the proposed route need be shifted as little as 400 metres to use the existing line between Brescia and Verona, for a nine km stretch to avoid the possible destruction, but add four minutes to the improved journey time.
Why do I care? Well, partly that having just discovered this wine which I like I am disappointed to have stumbled upon a challenge to its future success, but more because it is a parallel to what is proposed should happen to the Chilterns to enable those desperate to get out of Birmingham and into London (or vice versa, which is even more puzzling) to do so with insufficient time to enjoy a decent breakfast which is, after all, one of the more compelling reasons to travel by train.
There are sensitive alternatives available to solve the problem of more quickly moving the people in A to B and the people in B to A (see Douglas Adams on the futility of by-passes; the same logic applies) and any of those should be selected in both of these cases, however, perhaps if all of the people in such a tearing hurry stopped off on the banks of Lake Garda and enjoyed both the view and a glass of wine they might find that there are better ways to live and we call all leave things as they are.
The petition to register support unfortunately closed on 27th November, but use of the #SaveLugana may still draw attention.
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