If you ever find yourself needing to write a collaborative essay on a piece of contemporary art, may I suggest you take along a bottle of Allegrini when you’re meeting up with your fellow writers? After all, it’s a situation we’ve all been in, at one time or another.
As one of my collaborators-in-arms, Satu, said, upon our first mouthfuls of Allegrini, ‘Oh — this is a happy wine.’
Yes, indeed, Satu. I couldn’t have put it better myself. So, um, I won’t.
Allegrini is a happy wine. It’s warm, soft, gentle. Fruited. There’s cherry and chocolate and a smidge of coffee at the end. It’s summer evenings on a roof terrace in Tuscany. On a holiday with more than half its duration remaining.
It’s not dazzlingly unusual, but I reckon it might make you smile.
Now, stop procrastinating and get on with that goddamn essay.
Region Valpolicella
Grape Corvina
ABV 13%
Price £8.50 from The Wine Society (2010 vintage)
Wonder if there are other wines suitable for contemporary artists like, say, the Chapman brothers, when “happy” might be a completely inappropriate mood?