Short Cuts Deserve a Second Look …

If you enjoy the occasional slurp of red wine, you’ll probably know that a glass of Italian Amarone is a wonderful treat.

The trouble is that it comes with a rather hefty price tag.

Which, given the process of making it, is not surprising.

Harvested by hand, the grapes are picked, sorted, and carefully inspected before laying out on bamboo racks stacked high in airy drying sheds.

There the grapes lie undisturbed for up to six months losing as much as 40% of their moisture before the fermenting process can begin.

And if you are prepared to ignore the eye-popping price tag the results are worth it.

Others have tried to emulate the technique with varying degrees of success, but none have come close.

Until, that is, a clever wine grower from southern Italy tried something a little different.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and the canny wine producers of Puglia in southern Italy are a resourceful bunch.

In their dry southern climate, they simply twist the stems of the ripe bunches of grapes whilst still on the vine and leave them to dry off in the gentle autumn breezes.

At a stroke, they’ve removed a huge layer of cost.

And the results are amazing

Maybe not (yet) in the same league as their Tuscan cousins the resourceful Puglian wine growers have managed to produce some amazing appassimento wines at less than a quarter of the price.

There aren’t many genuine shortcuts in this life, but this is one of them.

Which all goes to prove that you don’t always have to go the long way round.

If you are planning a new website or preparing some fresh marketing material to kick off the new year with a bang it’s worth checking that it’s not unnecessarily over-engineered.

If you want a sounding board or just want to bend my ear, I’m on hand for a chat about anything to do with print or web design.

Food for thought this week – perhaps?

Stay safe.

Alec