A long-lived dry white – Mastroberardino Fiano

I thought I'd seen everything in terms of unusual grapes' reach into the mass market when I first encountered Tesco Finest Teroldego some years ago, but this has been trumped by the recent launch of Jacob's Creek Fiano. Clearly this Italian white varietal is going places – to a supermarket near you?

Fiano is one of Campania's great white wine grapes and Mastroberardino is by a mile the dominant producer in Irpinia, the hilly Campanian hinterland of Naples. In the 1920s it was the third most important wine zone in Italy, apparently – quite a feat when one considers the...