…which is an event in itself, so it’s best to go for broke - which took me to the poshest pad in town, Pelicano, one of the world’s tippety-toppest hotels. As a guide, a one night stay costs roughly the same as a month’s mortgage on a flat in Maidstone. A huddle of annexes sits languidly on the hillside just outside Porto Ercole, (cute harbour, BIIIIIIIIGGGGG boats), dipping its toes in the Med. There’s a Michelin-starred noshery and it’s all very, very nice. Gianni is the manager, (he alone is worth half the bill, who put me in mind of a round Liberace, minus bling), and he kicked things of with a glass of Guazza on the terrace. Goes very well as an aperitif; light, tasty and fresh…lovely with a little bowl of crisps, in my proletariate opinion. Guazza (”dew” in Italian), is 40/40/20 Ansonica, Vermentino and Fiano which are all local varieties and come out fresh as daisies in this little melange of ours.

We were dining with 20, guests of ourselves and Leonardo Salustri, who makes some Really Good Stuff in Montecucco, a DOC which neighbours Morellino. The evening was an extension of the Maremma Wine & Food, of which Pelicano and Salustri are original members. We took along some Capatosta 2001 as an added extra which poured really well. Capatosta remains, for me at least, The One, and the 2001 did itself proud - fruit still fruity, but with a few wrinkles, the velvet a bit worn at the elbows but patched up with smooooth tanins and a squidgy prune…an Oxbridge don’s old courduroy jacket.

The bang on the gong of the evening must go to Salustri’s Santa Marta 2004, oh, yum yum yum yum yum. Some people can’t stand it, others love it. For me, it IS Montecucco  - unknown, off the beaten track, hot summer hillsides with that chirpy cricket chorus (as in insect, not yawny sport), a wine that’s like a porcupine in a spacehopper. Montecucco has too few really good producers for it to have reached critical mass as a wine growing region, but it’s still worth strolling around occasionally to see what’s up. Salustri has been what’s upping for 40 years or so, so is one of the grandaddies of the DOC, and grandads generally know a thing or two.