Tuesday, 13th May 2025
Members: £58
Guests: £63
*Members of the Cambridge Society of London may invite one guest – if you are not currently a member and would like to become one, please enrol via this link.
Wine Tasting of North-East Italy
On Wednesday 19th March, we got a flavour of the great wines to be found in North-West Italy. Next is to taste the equivalent in North-East Italy. This is frankly an unrealistic task. North-East Italy encompasses four, arguably six distinct regions. Trentino Alto-Adige in the foothills of the Alps is really two. Both changed from Austrian to Italian in 1919. But local cultures mean Alto Adige (the Südtirol) speaks predominantly German, whereas Trentino’s language is Italian. Both regions make mostly single varietal wines with local reds (Schiava, Lagrein,Teroldego, Marzemino) and international varieties (Pinot Noir, Merlot) but more whites (especially Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and also Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Gewürztraminer, Riesling and Muller-Thurgau). Alto-Adige is further North into the Alps and cooler. Follow the river Adige south where the valley is wider, the climate slightly warmer and you reach Trentino. The next region is Friuli which is so far east it touches the other side of the Adriatic and borders Slovenia and Austria, with influences from both. Again the main varieties are white but it makes some high quality Merlot and Cabernet Franc. To the west of Friuli is Veneto, Italy’s largest wine producing region. It extends from the southern end of Lake Garda in the west to Venice in the east, and from the foothills of the Alps in the north to the flat plains of the Po river valley in the south. It is on these plains – Italy’s largest expanse of flat land – where the massive volumes of both Prosecco and Pinot Grigio are grown. But around Verona in Veneto are also two different, important wine-making areas: white wine Soave and the myriad styles of red Valpolicella.
We will as always concentrate on the finer quality wines, whilst trying to give a sense of the styles of the region itself.
We will taste eleven wines featuring 15 different grapes and ranging from 11% to 15.5% abv:
We will taste:
This is area is fascinating, varied but also extremely important in the world of Italian wine, so we do hope you can join us on Tuesday 13th May with an Italian cheese and charcuterie accompaniment. As usual the venue will be revealed to those who have purchased a ticket. But as many of you know it is very close to Green Park.
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About your host
Richard Pearey DipWSET, Chairman of the Society, has been passionate about wine from an embarrassingly early age. He began creating a cellar in 1984 and despite (or perhaps because of) a long career in advertising, film and sports marketing, then men’s luxury shirts, has been drinking steadily ever since. His addiction to the grape has led many of his friends to hand over their wine cellars to his care. He has organised and hosted wine evenings as corporate or staff entertainment for city firms, marketing agencies and private clients, from 8 to 200 people. He has run a wine course for friends, his own wine club – Who Nose – since 1985 and his old school dining society, the oldest in the world, for 23 years. He co-founded a wine event company, We Don’t Spit, in 2013 and learned to spit, at which point he began his official wine qualifications. He completed his Diploma in lockdown and now works at Hedonism Wine in Mayfair, probably the best wine shop on the planet, whilst pursuing his ultimate dream of becoming a Master of Wine, of which there are still only 425 in the world. Part of this 3-5 year course involves blind tasting 48 wines from anywhere in the world. So he is hoping tasting with Society Members will help!
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Cambridge Society of London Transfer and Refund Policy
i) At least 14 calendar days before the event: We will provide full refunds (minus any booking/transaction fees, which are nonrefundable). Alternatively, if you have found a suitable replacement, we can change the name on the ticket on the understanding that you will reclaim the ticket price from them separately.
ii) Between 4 and 14 calendar days before the event: Our arrangements with our hosts are always finalised 4 calendar days before each event. With more than 4 calendar days’ notice we can still change the name to someone named by you on the understanding that you will reclaim the ticket price from them separately. Alternatively, we MIGHT be able to sell it to someone else; there is no guarantee of that but we will do our best and then refund you if successful.
iii) Less than 4 calendar days: We regret that we cannot offer refunds if given less than 4 calendar days’ notice
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