Thursday 3 April

An unusually late flight with BA from Gatwick (17.50) to Verona meant a long morning’s packing and sorting out – including watering Chris’ houseplants and emptying bins  while she languished in Basingstoke hospital after her fall early on Tuesday morning, breaking a vertebrae.

The UK was enjoying the long spell of high pressure dominating all Europe which was forecast to last at least another week; the walk to the station was warm and sunny, and the connections worked smoothly. We had boarded by 18.00 and arrived in Verona on time, using a taxi to reach Massimo’s Avenue rooms (127 Corso Porta Nuova, scala B) by 22.00.  He greeted us warmly, showed us to our familiar room, and arranged a proper check-in for 10.30 next morning. 

Friday 4 April 

Massimo is a friendly, amusing man, keen to please and not to cause offence. He briefed us once more on the local ristoranti, and shared his misgivings about his accountant’s pricing advice. We benefitted from a discount – as returning customers staying a week and willing to use some cash, and the loan of a sharp knife !  

The room is very pleasant; functional and quiet, with a balcony overlooking the yard below. (The photo was taken last year!) We set off mid morning to have a day’s sight-seeing, walking along the river bank, passing the beautiful small romanesque church of San Zeno in Oratorio

We were en route to visit the massive Basilica of San Zeno, outside the boundary of the roman walls, built between the 8th and 9th centuries on the site of the tomb of San Zeno, the Bishop of Verona in the 4th century.

It is a favourite of mine which David had not experienced, with its rose coloured marbles, a fine cloister, and three levels – crypt (including San Zeno’s modest if overdressed mortal remains), main basilica nave, and a raised, formerly high altar behind which stands an extraordinary triptych by Andrea Mantegna (still in the position where he had finished painting it in 1459) : the Divine Conversation.

It was in this place in 2018 that I witnessed a large group baptism performed by a very talented parish priest, who presented each candidate to the Sunday congregation with such bravado. A young Zeno nearly brought the house down! Below is a wonderful fresco of Tobias and the Angel Raphael, and the bell tower.

Lunch was close by in a vegetarian and vegan ristorante recommended by Massimo called La Lanterna where I got into a wrangle with a Wine Spectator journalist, also in Verona for VinItaly, over President Trump’s latest lunacy: tariffs. 

‘What do people in New York think about what’s happening?’ It was alarming to hear an intelligent old hand from New York,  trained to be scrupulously correct as a reporter in the 1990s, telling us there are many truths…. and that everyone in the USA knows annexing Canada and Greenland is a joke…. and that Mexico had deliberately exported all their criminals and drug dealers to the USA… and so on. Depressing.  

We walked back along the river to the Castel Vecchio (where to my annoyance the Cangrande statue was under wraps for restoration) and then up the corso Cavour, through the Porta Borsari

and on to Sant’Anastasia (buying an €8 vitorinox tomato knife from a very smart knife shop en route). This church is another exquisite example of pre-Baroque polychromatic architecture. Spell-binding. 

We stopped for a cup of coffee at a very quiet cafe behind the massive Roman Arena, only a few yards from a very busy Piazza Bra, before heading back for a short rest and a change of clothes.

Supper was at the Bottega Vini where David had cunningly booked an early dinner several days ago. The side street outside was already heaving with others awaiting entry, through whom we walked straight inside to our table. Along side us were a Danish couple drinking a bottle of Conterno’s Francia 2020 of which they offered us a taste on hearing we had been talking with Roberto only a week ago. We had them taste (blind) our very good (and very economical) Grignolino.

Saturday 5 April 

Studio Cru had arranged a visit to Maculan, a winery in Briganze, to the north of Vicenza, so we left Verona on the 08.22 heading for Venezia, and disembarked at Vicenza to be greeted warmly by Alessandra Zambonin from Studio Cru, and Angela Maculan, our hostess for the day. After a quick cup of coffee, Alessandra left us to drive her son to Saturday football, and we drove with Angela for 20 or so minutes to Briganze, a small but attractive town on the foothills, north of the Po plain.

Angela is in charge of marketing and hospitality while her father and sister work in the winery and vineyards. He has built up a sizeable estate, buying land through the 90s and 00s from neighbours, continuing the long-established tradition of growing Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, as well as Vespaiola, a curious local white grape used in their sweet Torcolato, popular with Italians. 

She took us to the vineyards with splendid views, explaining their training of the vines and their use of nets. She was a fabulous host – making sure we tasted their wines, explaining her work and frequent travels.

Angela very kindly took us to the neighbouring town of Marostica to enjoy exceptional local cooking at the Osteria Madonnetta and fine views of the two castles. Its central square, the Piazza degli Scacchi, annually hosts an enormous chess competition with people as pieces clad in quasi-medieval garments (think Massa Marittima’s’ archery competitions and Siena’s Palio). It draws huge crowds! 

We were returned to Vicenza station (where many Easters ago we had met Marianna Concato, who had been our very first language assistant in Winchester, who drove us to meet her family at Lazise on Lake Garda for Easter lunch) and we reached Verona in time to try supper at the basic but acceptable local Pizzeria delle Nazioni, in the company of local families and rail employees – possibly drivers. I think I had a salad! 

Sunday 6 – 9 April:  VinItaly 2025

One of the virtues of Massimo’s accommodation is its position at the southern end of the Corso Porta Nuova midway between the medieval city centre to the north, and the Fiera to the south, with the station close by, alongside the very fine Porta Nuova itself. 

Each morning we walked for 20 minutes in warm sunshine along the main roads busy with thousands of people driving to VinItaly, and made it through the foreign visitors’ turnstiles in record times. David had researched a list of Tuscan wineries which the Wine Scholar Guild may consider using in next year’s private Tuscan tour with which we punctuated our other Piemonte visits. We were especially pleased to find the self-service lunch area, and ate there at least three times in the course of the week. I particularly enjoyed an asparagus lasagne – three times.. 

By and large it was a less intense and therefore more comfortable VinItaly; plenty of tasting, meeting and greeting, but with less pressure or even need than previous years. 

Highlights were the presentation of six Piemonte women winemakers on Monday, (a great project of Stevie Kim) where we finally clapped eyes on Isabella Odero’s wine-making aunt, among several other familiar faces 

We had been invited by Studio Cru to visit the Tedeschi (of Lugana) stand, with whom we were to have dinner on Monday night. It had gradually dawned on us that the venue for this was no other than the prestigious Biblioteca Capitolare, an ancient repository for the whole of the Veneto, opposite the Duomo. Massimo had previously urged us to visit it, stressing (as a lawyer himself) its importance in the history of Italian law-making. 

It was a remarkable occasion, if slow, with nearly a hundred seated guests, celebrating a change of direction (and re-brand) by Tedeschi, using the grand main room upstairs. The Biblioteca also houses what had been a private collection of largely Italian art and historical artefacts, whose displays were visible en route to the loos. Most notable were the illustration of early musical notation and a bound copy of biblical text, in latin on one side of a page, and opposite the greek text (albeit transcribed in Latin alphabet!)  and a drawing of the Guidonian Hand, devised to help memorise notes….

And of course the main excitement revolved around David’s presentation on Tuesday of his research on the increase of plantings in Piemonte of white wine grapes in the last 17 years, just published in the VinItaly edition of Decanter, and held in the main presentation suite where we had often listened to and tasted with the great and the good. He did a brilliant job! 

We tracked down old friends including Capitoni from Val Orcia, (in a very sharp suit) and several new ones, including Andrea Fattizzo with whom David discussed deadlines for the updated book, to be translated and published by Ampelos later in the year. 

We ate on Sunday night at Con Amore – a tiny ristorante with quite limited appeal; and on Tuesday at L’Altra Colonna, and on Wednesday night at Il Condominio (where the waitress tried to coax her clients with a free Prosecco into surrendering their phones in the interests of conversation… ) And we paid a couple of visits to Alberto’s Enoteca just along the street, to enjoy a beer.

The journey home on Thursday morning was straightforward: ten minutes to the station to pick up the shuttle bus (every 20 minutes) to the airport; a short wait to check in with BA before a rapid progress through security (where a very sensitive detector noticed my orange!) and an on-time departure. The cases were virtually first off the conveyor belt at Gatwick we and hardly had to wait to catch a train to Clapham. We arrived there just two minutes before the down train to Andover;  home by 16.00!