Eight Tuscan verticals

My recent visit to Tuscany with a group of international journalists for a set of vertical tastings was full of ups and downs: the ranges of hills that bump across the horizon, the range of years within the verticals we were there to taste, and the range of quality within those flights. Actually, to be fair, there were few very poor examples, although some vintages seemed too old to my mind. And see my account of Bibbiano's wines for an example of Italian wine-law lunacy.

On that last point, opinion among my fellow tasters was split. Some lauded the older...