Swig's Italian gems

Italy does quite well for wine guides but some of them are pretty unwieldy. Gambero Rosso’s Italian wines, for example, well known for its tre bicchiere (three glasses) awards, includes 2,256 producers and 18,000 wines rated, though not that many tasting notes. It’s a thick, heavy paperback and its binding can barely cope with the 900 or so pages but it is available in English and has a pretty good reputation. I vini d’Italia, published by L’Espresso, is also pretty thorough – more than 1,700 wines rated but again not many tasting notes. The main drawback is that...