Wine of the Week
AT a recent tasting of Vene- tian wines British importers showed especial interest, I am told, in Bardolino, and it ought to be easier to find in this country now than it has been. It might, at any rate, be worth asking for at shops that go in for Italian wines; and it shouldn't be more than 8s. a bottle. We do not usually think of the Italian lakes as being 'Venetian,' but Bardolino comes from the extreme western edge of the Veneto—from the hills on the Verona side of Lake Garda, where it is grown in surroundings of picture-postcard prettiness. It is a fresh red wine, not unlike its cousin Valpolicella, which comes from the near-by valleys, though it is lighter, if anything, both in colour and in sub- stance, and sometimes has the slightest prickle on the tongue. I think it goes very well with cold meats and salads. I have a special sentimental regard for it myself, because it was Max Beer- bohm's favourite wine for casual drinking in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon. He would drink, and offer it, cool, and it was always refreshing after the hot and tiresome drive up to his villa on the noisy, bustling main road above Rapallo. If! thought that any of his elegance as a writer, or sweetness as a man, derived from those gentle teatime sips of Bardolino I would drink it myself by the bucket.
CYRIL RAY
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