Wine Opinion: How Italian styles won a master's heart

Michael Palij has been in love with Italian wines for 20 years. The affair began over lunch. Having been honoured with a rare invitation to an Italian home, the Master of Wine was offered not a glass of one of the major Italian wines but vino sfuso, the stuff left with the lees at the bottom of the barrel.

"The point is that I was there to have lunch and talk and see the family. The people were centre stage, not the wine," he says.

Nowadays, Palij is on what he calls a mission to demystify wine and remove all the pomposity and vanity he feels surrounds the drink.

The Canadian of Ukrainian extraction has been in Britain for 24 years, working as a wine merchant and educator. He established a company, VinoVeritas, selling Italian wine in Hong Kong about six months ago and is relocating here.

Palij believes that a lot of wine is overpriced and drinking trends are too fashion-driven. The effect is that consumers are paying too much for wine.

"There's no understanding. Here you have Bordeaux one day and Burgundy the next, and Burgundy [producers] have lost sight of what value for money is in wine," he says.