This is an old photo of Alvaro and his daughter Federica from Lis Neris at Vinitaly in 2008. The stand looks the same and I like to think we all do too. This year for the first time I had one of Alvaro’s wines in Milan at a dinner with friends the night before Vinitaly. Alvaro’s winery is located in San Lorenzo, very near the border with Slovenia. The soil is a gravelly tableland and Alvaro, a very meticulous winemaker, has the grapes picked by hand.

I first tried his reds a number of years ago and was a much bigger fan of his whites but with time, I think he has hit it out of the park with this Cabernet. It was, much like Alvaro himself, elegant and slightly restrained. My friends couldn’t get enough of it and I think we finished two or three bottles at a lovely little neighborhood restaurant near my old stomping grounds in Milan, Cumino Bistrot.