2020 Briccotondo: a spine-tinglingly brilliant white from Piemonte

2020 Briccotondo, Langhe Arneis, Fontanafredda, Piemonte, Italy

published 16 August 2021

2020 Briccotondo, Langhe Arneis, Fontanafredda, Piemonte, Italy

Even though I have been writing about wine for well over two decades, I still think of myself as being of the wine trade as opposed to a journalist. I still consult for a few companies in the hospitality industry and food and wine-matching has always been a cornerstone of my métier. Every month I select a handful of wines for recipes created by some of the finest chefs for a business called Wild Radish. The idea is that you can learn to cook like an expert and then enjoy your creation with world-class wine. This arneis is one of the bottles I picked recently and it is so spectacular that I wanted to highlight it for you this week.

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Arneis is a wondrous white grape and the phenomenal Piemontese terrain gives this floral but tense variety an uncommon degree of beauty and drama on the palate. Fontanafredda is a world-famous wine estate, but it usually rocks peoples’ palates with red wines. This time, however, this

exquisite white is the star wine in its diverse portfolio.

Hauntingly perfumed, spine-tinglingly bright and refreshing, and keenly priced, too, this is the definitive white to serve this week, ice cool, to slake your thirst at the same time as pricking your interest. If you have never tasted this grape before, you will fall in love in just one sip. If you have, then this wine will take your appreciation of arneis to a new level.

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

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. 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, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

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.