“The wines that one remembers are not necessarily the finest that one has tasted, and the highest quality may fail to delight so much as some far more humble beverage drunk in more favourable surroundings.” H Warner Allen, 1951.
This Juliana is a humble wine though perhaps not, as at the right moment it rises to great heights. Warner Allen left us with a memorable description of what to expect.
‘On the hills above Alassio, on the Italian Riviera, there is a little col where two views meet: on one side the blue Mediterranean with a line of snowy Apennines on the horizon, and on the other the landward view, the enchanted valley of Albenga. It was a glorious climb to reach it ……..In the early March sunshine there would still be patches of snow lying on the upper slopes, and the cool breeze blowing from the Alps challenged the laziest climber to press onward to the summit, the Madonna della Guardia. In the valley beneath there lies the village of Moglio, and in it is a little inn. The inn-keeper grows his own wine and on the way the climber should ask him for a bottle of his Moscato. Consigned to a knapsack, that bottle should make the ascent. I can still see the rock, like a lion couchant, which just below the Madonna della Guardia throws into shadow a patch of snow, where the bottle can be buried in cold white refreshment, while the rest of the climb is accomplished in the swifty-increasing warmth of the spring sun. Thence one could plunge head-long back to the enjoyment of that gay little wine….and feel as one’s thirst was quenched, that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.’
