Orvieto

The English Spring is demonstrating it's versatility this week with lovely warm sunshine interspersed with enough snow to make my golfing friend who lives in the other side of the big hill doubt that our course would be open. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he told me that he had awoken to nearly two inches of settled snow only ten or so miles from our home, which is a very tenuous introduction to:

Week O (2021) La Piuma Orvieto 2019. Waitrose £7.99

In Italian La Piuma means 'the feather', don't you know? Well you do now. One can learn so much from wine, even if none of it is particularly useful in day-to-day life. 

La Piuma is a brand and Orvieto is not a grape variety but a region that got a passing mention in my weekly wines back in April 2015 (Week G), when we tasted a single variety wine made from Grechetto. I noted then, as you will of course recall, that the variety was used in the wines from Orvieto where it is usually blended with Trebbiano and that is what we have here. Well nearly. This one also has as the third and least prominent blending partner which is Chardonnay.

It is a clean and bright looking wine and the immediate impression is one of melon with a suggestion grapefruit coming through in the finish. Emenently drinkable as an aperitif or with a meal. In our case it was both, the meal being a mushroom risotto with a side salad and a friend who was visiting from her home in the Lake District, because that's allowed now.

It's not a wine to rave about but it is very pleasant and, at the price, a very reasonable purchase.

The region is situated in central Italy with the town itself being in Umbria but the DOC area extending into Lazio. The latter province is, of course, where Romulus and Remus grew up in their vulpine family before going on to found the city of Rome. And that, coincidentally, is where we will be watching as our guest's daughter will marry her fiance in five months time, assuming that travel will be permitted. I hope so, because this is their fourth attempt to set and keep a date since a year ago.

Will we toast their health and happiness with wines from Orvieto? I have no idea but there could be many less enjoyable choices so I'd be happy.

Would I buy it again? Yes, but I won't seek it out as I still have too many other wines to investigate.