Pizzini Verduzzo 2024

Verduzzo is a grape variety that hails from Italy, best known in the northern Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto regions. Intensely aromatic, it’s like bowing your head into a bouquet of mixed blooms. There’s roses, lilies and wildflowers mixed with the herbaceous lift of sprigs of foliage. Then the fruit joins in – white peaches and a hint of passionfruit gives way to Campari and the saline freshness of a day spent preserving lemons. In the mouth it has the dense silkiness of quality Chardonnay, but more savoury and without the sweet oak spice. Grapefruit wedges and just-ripe apricots meld with more of that enticing salinity; while a peppery spice hints at freshly picked rocket. Add food and that savoury peppery note sings – pair with spinach and ricotta filled conchiglioni (those decadent jumbo seashells), baked in vibrant homemade passata and oregano.

Nicole Bilson

Wine Critic at Winepilot

Nicole loves wine. So much so that she gave up a successful career in Pharmacy, perfected her spitting technique, and moved from sunny Queensland to the wine-drenched laneways of Melbourne. Stints in hospitality, wineries, retail, sales and marketing filled the next few years while Nicole built her knowledge and searched for the right path. She completed the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Diploma in 2016 and became a certified WSET Educator the following year. She now juggles a number of roles including teaching people about wine, curating wines lists for restaurants and bars, judging in Australian wine shows and, of course, writing. In 2016 she won the Negociants Working With Wine writing award and has since contributed to Gourmet Traveller WINE, Halliday Wine Companion Magazine and Nourish Magazine.

Wine tasting