* BRUNO Raffaelli can claim to have helped educate the Scottish palate
since he arrived here in 1965 -- at least as far as wine is concerned.
Bruno arrived in Scotland as a waiter but when he opened his first
Italian restaurant in Edinburgh 20 years ago he noticed that his
Scottish customers ordered a bottle of Lambrusco or Asti Spumante with
their meal no matter what they were eating.
He decided to widen his customers' taste by offering them a wider
selection, and began to import lesser-known vintages.
The imports began as only a few hundred cases but other Italian
restaurants began to ask Bruno if he could supply them too. Today
Raffaelli Wines in Sighthill Estate, Edinburgh supplies about 100
restaurants with something like 100,000 bottles of wine every year.
Bruno considers he has seen a big improvement in the wine-drinking
habits of the Scottish public. ''I now import 100 different wines, with
the prices varying between #3 and #30 a bottle,'' he says. ''Scots now
drink less but better wine: there has been a definite move towards
quality.''
He describes wines such as Lambrusco as ''beginners' wine''. ''Young
people are used to drinking orange, and coke,'' he says, ''which is why
their palate finds sweet wine more acceptable.''
Wine-producing countries such as Italy and Germany produce sweet wine
aimed at the British market, and in the region where Lambrusco is
produced the wine is naturally dry and is consumed by the local
population in this form.
Bruno arrived in Scotland after finishing catering college in London
and touring Europe to study eating habits.
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