Insulting your friends

A few years back, if you really wanted to insult someone, you would probably have yelled at them: "You're as inspid as Soave", and that would have been no mean insult. Insipid, really inspid, was where Soave was at. It was as dire as that other Italian travesty, Lambrusco (well, okay, almost as dire as Lambrusco). It was a wine that somehow seemed to offer you everything you didn't want in a wine. You wanted zesty freshness, lush fruit flavours, sensuous aromas and tongue-curling deliciousness. Soave gave you the vinous equivalent of a dog licking your leg.

How things change. Take yourself into Searson's superb wine shop in Monkstown, pick up a bottle of Zenato's Colombara Soave Classico 2000, hand over £9.99 and bring it home, get it nice and cool, open it and be prepared to be amazed, for this is superb Soave. The secret lies in the Classico designation, which means the wine is made from vineyards on the hills around the beautiful castle of Soave, in north-eastern Italy, close to Verona.

Here, finally, is a wine to give Soave a good name: balanced, zesty and fresh, lovely fruit, an absolute treat.

Searsons , Monkstown Crescent,
Tel: (01) 280 0405, Fax: (01) 280 4771
Email: info@searsons.com