Wine of the week: a hauntingly attractive arneis

2010 Roero Arneis, Perdaudin, Negro, Piedmont, Italy (about £16.75, Great Western Wine, 01225-322810; SWIG, 08000 272272; Cambridge Wine Merchants, 01223-568993).

At a recent wine tasting, I was zooming along the bottles in time-honoured style waiting for serious wines to jump out and catch my attention when the Serra Lupini Arneis from Negro stopped me in my tracks.

I don't usually talk to the producers at these events, preferring to make my own notes and not get waylaid, but I had to ask Emanuela Negro (daughter of the owner Giovanni) to tell me a little more about her wines. Serra Lupini is their more forward, lighter arneis (meaning little rascal'!) and it was breathtakingly pretty, with delicate stone fruit notes and a delicious, silky texture.

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When I moved onto the Perdaudin version (for only a few quid more), I was floored. Planted on exclusively sandy soils, rich in fossil shells, these slightly older vines have yielded the most hauntingly attractive arneis I have ever tasted.

Because these wines, and for that matter this region, are little known, they are still an absolute bargain. Think of a Premier Cru chablis-shaped wine with more complexity and restraint than any unoaked chardonnay could muster and you are half way to the undisputable excellence of this wine.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006.

He has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.