Il Traliccio Sangiovese, Rubicone

Il Traliccio sits firmly in the “why overcomplicate things?” category of Italian wine. Affordable, easy-drinking bottles built for actual meals rather than silent tasting rooms and people aggressively searching for notes of “graphite”.

The range comes out of Emilia-Romagna and sticks to classic approachable Italian styles. The Sangiovese especially does exactly what you want from simple everyday Italian red: cherry fruit, soft plum, gentle spice and enough freshness to make pasta suddenly seem like an excellent idea. Nothing heavy, nothing over-oaked, just straightforward drinkable wine.

The Trebbiano follows the same idea on the white side. Crisp, citrusy, light-bodied and very easy to get through frighteningly quickly once cold. Proper fridge-door wine.

There’s something very reassuring about wines like this. They’re not trying to become cult natural wine bottles or luxury collector items. They exist because Italian wine culture has always understood that decent affordable wine with food is one of life’s better ideas.

You can easily imagine these bottles sitting on tables beside pizza, grilled meat and too much bread somewhere noisy and warm.

Which honestly is probably exactly where they belong.