A couple of years ago I got an unexpected email from Jim Furze, who at the time was MD of McKinley Vintners in London, which since then has merged with New Generation Wines, inviting me to a tasting of Sicilian Syrah from the Montecarrubo estate. I had never heard of it and I am not naturally enthusiastic about international varieties planted in Sicily, but the fact that this was Peter Vinding-Diers’ new project indicated that this was not going to be your run-of-the-mill Syrah.
Several of my colleagues and I duly converged on a flashy restaurant in the City, London's...