Malcolm Jolley celebrates the arrival (finally) of the 2015 Janare Falanghina del Sannio DOP.

Winemaker Marco Giulioli and The Vine’s Alex Gaunt with a Bottle of the Janare Falanghina del Sannio DOP.

Last year I tasted the Janare Falanghina del Sannio DOP 2015 (LCBO# 387647) with one its maker’s, Marco Giulioli from the La Guardiense in Campania, northeast of Naples. That tasting resulted in this GFR post, dated June 17. If you click on the link you’ll see I thought it was a great wine and hoped it would be soon available here, since La Guardiense’s agent, The Vine had submitted the wine to the LCBO for testing.

Slow forward more than a year, and I was delighted to see, the other day, a picture of the Janare Falanghina in my email inbox when I received The Vine’s newsletter announcing the wine was finally going to be released into the Vintages program this month. I was further delighted to see that the Janare is being offered at a competitive price point of $16.95.

The story of this wine and its producers is a typical distillation of the good food revolution in Italy in the last 20 years. La Guardiense, a cooperative that was formed to grow bulk wine pivoted and instead pursued a strategy to grow indigenous grapes to make wines of increasing quality. The Janare Falanghina is a great example of a clean, well made wine at a great price (for now). It’s bright, lemony and concentrated in fruit, with a little honeyed sweetness (though low in actual sugar) and a refreshing twang. It’s a backyard wine, and makes a perfect aperitif or something to sip while getting things ready for dinner.

Click here to find it on the LCBO website for information on where to find it, etc.