Just as dogs famously resemble their owners wine growers tend to take after their wines: hot-tempered and red-blooded

Just as dogs famously resemble their owners, wine growers tend to take after their wines: hot-tempered and red-blooded in the south, increasingly patient and law-abiding the further north you go. Perhaps this phenomenon helps explain why growers from Tuscany take greater delight than their northern counterparts in tearing up the rule book.It takes a lot for a Piemontese or Venetian to give up on the DOC system (Denominazione di Origine Controllata). Yet recently Nino Pieropan, one of the best producers of soave (his fine whites are imported by Liberty Wines, London SW8, 020-7720 5350), declassified his excellent single vineyard whites alvarino, La Rocca and the sweet Recioto Le Colombare, from soave DOC to humble vino da tavola The decision wasn't taken without soul-searching. Why did he abandon the name he and his family are so attached to? Because in applying for DOCG status for soave, the highest title the system can confer, the local co-op-dominated consorzio is proposing the same high production levels as for the current DOC Soave's image is already compromised by mediocrity. This gives growers a licence to produce even more and keep the DOC tag. The quality will not improve by it becoming DOCG.Italian wine lovers in the UK might be bemused by the idea of soave becoming a DOCG at all. Most of this insipid stuff doesn't deserve the implied quality tag (remember what happened to liebfraumilch "qualit?wein"?).

But by controlling yields, as Pieropan's wines show, there are a handful of good soaves around. As part of its bold move to improve its Italian range, Unwins, the high street chain, has added to its new Italian range, which has no fewer than 40 new wines from Sicilian toe to Alpine top.Unwins' development is timely. Despite the popularity of Italian food and restaurants, Italian wine doesn't walk off the high-street shelf like Chilean or Australian (lambrusco hasn't exactly helped in this regard). Its very diversity counts against it, making it bewildering and resistant to branding.

Credit must go to Oddbins, which comes closest to offering an interesting range.Now Unwins is making the effort with a soave of the quality of the 1999 Soave Classico Monte Fiorentine from Ca' Rugate, £6.99 (on promotion till 20 May at £5.99), aromatic, spicy with brisk spritz, lightly honeyed with a nutty finish. Only the brave would contemplate paying more than £10 for a soave, but the 1998 Soave Classico Superiore Vigneti di Foscarino, £11.49, from Inama, is worth it. It's a classy dry Veneto white with a super-ripe, honeysuckle character rounded by a touch of oak spice.With its native whites, Italy epitomises the fightback against chardonnay fatigue. It can still come up with competent, entry-level whites like the 2000 Inycon Chardonnay (£4.49 on promotion). But with so many native varieties to call on, it's strength is in the more interesting styles made from local grapes: arneis from Piemonte, pinot grigio from Friuli, verdicchio from the Marche, grechetto in Umbria's orvieto, and greco from the south.

The 2000 Greco di Tufo Feudi di San Gregorio, £7.99, is a personal favourite, a rich southern white from the volcanic soils of Campania, which smells and tastes of fresh ripe pears in the company of a chunk of fresh parmesan.If common-or-garden soave represents the downside of tradition in Italy's north-eastern Veneto region, the traditional amarone style of its alter ego, valpolicella, is undergoing a welcome revival. The corvina grape, its main constituent, is being recognised for the quality grape that it is when handled properly. Amarone, the traditional Veneto red made from corvina by spreading out the grapes to dry on racks in ventilated storehouses, has made such a comeback that 30 per cent of all Valpolicella Classico reds are produced in this style.The amarone on the Unwins list, the 1996 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, Rocca Sveva, £11.99, is made by the Soave co-operative, showing how keen producers, even outside the district, are to grab a slice of the action. It's a competent example, with the powerful alcohol and trademark raisined sweetness of concentrated dried grapes. Given that the traditional drying process is inevitably expensive, this is a good starting point for anyone prepared to give amarone a whirl.