It used to be that Spanish and Italian wine sales would peak just after the summer months as people returned from their holidays, fired up with enthusiasm for the wines they quaffed so readily by the pool, only to find that the versions available here were but poor shadows of what they had found abroad. Of course, we all know that part of the attraction lies in the very fact that, on holiday, we are so much more forgiving of a wine’s faults or dullness but a larger problem had less to do with rose-tinted holiday spectacles and rather more to do with the actual quality of the wines being exported to the UK. Thankfully, things have completely changed over the past few years.

All of our wines from Italy and Spain are from indigenous grape varieties – even poor, benighted Pinot Grigio has its homeland in Italy, although it seems more of an itinerant these days – and are notably from the younger generation of winemakers who have travelled and worked vintages in other classic wine areas. Instead of taking for granted what their predecessors have done, having completed their oenology studies they are in a position to question their actions and work out how to get the best from their local grapes. The results are stunning, giving wines of great individuality and character, more important than ever in a world where homogeny and conformity appear to be the norm.

New this year are two white Riojas from Valserrano – we listed their reds last year for the first time – and the Gran Reserva Blanco, in particular, is a wonderful combination of the old and new styles; once you’ve tried it there’ll be no going back! We have also added a couple of wines from Valpolicella, a Classico and an Amarone – truly stunning wines which have broken away from the shocking examples offered in the 1980s in the UK. Our final addition is a very new wine from Bierzo, in north-west Spain, where former Moueix stagiaire, José Mas Asturias, spotted some 80 year old Mencía vines and is combining the classic techniques of the area with the attention to detail learnt in Libourne with superb results.