Dinner at the Palazzo Capua on the 27th January 2026

This particular wine – Taurasi - was chosen because I wanted a full-bodied, deeply coloured, and savoury wine to go with a winter menu and I felt that Aglianico, the premier ancient red grape variety from Southern Italy, would fit the bill perfectly. It is a wine with high tannin, high acidity, and exceptional aging potential and so valued in Italy that they often call it the "Barolo of the South"

I also felt that it would be a pleasant surprise and change from the usual suspects we have at our tastings. We were a very small group of 20 this time and so it was easy to be a bit more casual and go round the other two tables to note their feedback and hear opinions on the type of wine it was and if it was being enjoyed – we had some more waste than usual this time but the high consumption was to me a clear indication of the enjoyment members were having imbibing it.

My personal vote was very similar to the group vote and all the dinner wines gave me great pleasure as I had hoped and expected them to. However, the wine of the evening for me was the aperitif. That New Zealand Sauvignon wine was more balanced and elegant than most of its stablemates, even the highly valued and famous ones, and in my opinion is very good value – definitely a wine to use at home when having guests.

I was also very happy with the increased quality of the food we had on the night. Other than a couple of outliers who gave extremely low votes for reasons best known to themselves, the rest gave a high vote to the menu provided by the Chef and his brigade at Palazzo Capua – there were even a couple of 10s.

The only concern I had was that we had such a low turnout. It was reportedly because of the fear of bad weather and this was understandable especially for those who needed to come from Gozo. Hopefully things will pick up at future events.

Iro