Karen Casagrande

The fair sex prefer an aperitif out of the home (67%) while men are more stay-at-home (47%) this distinguishes wine consumption between men and women. 

The survey carried out during Vinitaly 2013 on a 3.000 visitors of the fair, portrays the different attitudes between male and female wine lovers. 44% of men are habitual drinkers and do so at home, while women prefer a less frequent consumption  ( 42% drink wine 3 volte a week) and out of the home.

The frequency of wine consumption growth with age and both genders concentrate their drinking during the weekend (75%). Women especially like to taste a nice glass of wine as an aperitif, for dinner, or even after dinner but in more convivial situations.

I would have never thought that some of the old traditions I have discovered during my working experience at Fattoria del Colle were the same I already knew and grew up with. It has simply been a rediscovery.

I was born in Chiusi, a small village located on the border between Tuscany and Umbria, south of Siena. It is an old town with Etruscan origins surrounded by countryside and small lakes.

I have always wished to leave the countryside, and sometimes I did, to look for different spaces, different ways of living and views. Always very nice!

the kitchen of the farm

At Fattoria del Colle, located between Crete Senesi and Val d’Orcia and not far from Chiusi, I have found a place projected into the future but with strong ties with the past and its traditions. It is a place that makes its key feature the old customs, the old tales, the old winter games and folk evenings, nature and contact with it.
All this is a precious cultural richness which it is worth to transmit to all the guests who come for a visit  or for a holiday  in Tuscany.
And the interest that all this inspires in them is evident..
I remember once, I was carrying out a guided tour of the estate trying to catch the attention of a group who’s wish was to visit a real old farm, beside their interest in wine .
I had the impression that at the beginning they where thinking I was telling something I had only heard about, but when I specified that at home I had the same old jars for the extra virgin olive oil that I was showing them, their interest immediately changed. This increased when I showed them the old kitchen with the original fireplace. It has a corner used in the past as an incubator for the small chicks during winter. I added that my grandmother used to bring the chicks next to the fireplace to protect them from the cold winter. This habit was the same until some years ago in large and small houses. I thus became a witness and not only a teller!

All of this I had already experienced in my childhood in the small village I was born in and the experience at Fattoria del Colle helped me to rediscover and to share with people some of my most vivid memories:

My grandmother who every Sunday morning made hand made pasta and ran behind me screaming because I pressed the pici against the table ruining her job.
The vegetable garden so dear to my father and so rich in fresh vegetables and fruit all year long.
The long walks in the countryside looking for chamomile or mauve and other medicinal plants.
The hand made jams! How delicious and what fun to prepare them at home!

Whatever they are, our roots are so important that each one of us should be aware of their value and utility, without loosing the curiosity to discover the new and the modern, of course!
Alessia Bianchi

According to Professor Damien Wilson of the Burgundy’s School of Business the commercial sector of wine business uses Twitter as an anti-depressive

Damien Wilson.

The term used by the Professor in his interview for “Harpers” Wine and Spirit Trades Review, is definitely strong: Twitter according to him is a << verbal Prozac >> for the consumer. Wilson is the director of the Master of Wine Business and consequently his opinion is one of those that get attention. According to him social media in general and especially Twitter, have a key role in the creation of a rapport with the consumer.

From here starts a survey regarding 5.500 Tweets. The diagnosis says that this is a one way communication, which promotes information but does not create a contact with the consumer. According to Wilson when wine lovers post their tweets they do it because wine is part of their lifestyle. They do not talk of terroir, soil or other notions just about the experience of their tasting.

The opinion that Twitter is a place to converse is shared by Helen McGinn of the Knackered Mother’Wine Club.

Another important testimony comes from Joe Wadsack who underlines how

Joe-Wadsack

the social networks are a conversation in two senses << people do not talk to a product but to a person>> and he quotes for example his page joewadsack.com where he launched the subject <<how to change the naming of wines>> setting off a chain of contacts.

Actually Professor Wilson’s analysis is exact. At the end I feel the commercial sector of wine should listen with great attention Damien Wilson’s words and possible put them into practise. For us grape growers and winemakers it’s a different matter. The

Helen-McGinn

wine world needs to talk about itself to increase its myth. It’s a good thing to use the social networks as a diary, to let the consumer participate in the daily happenings, passion, work, places, meetings, emotions….. This does not mean talking without listening to the answerers, quite the contrary, why don’t we begin right away, what do you think?

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The Italian economic crisis forces wine producers to export. Here are the average prices of our wines abroad compared to those of the cleverest of the all: the new Zealanders.

In Italy the main sales of wine come through department stores: 571 million litres old in 2011 and 62% of the habitual total acquisition. In the supermarkets business tied to 0,75 lt. bottles is the main business and it has increate by 4,5% compared to a contemporary contraction of bottle sizes which are more economic.
It seem that retail sales are moving in on wine stores while the decrease in amount spent on food by the consumer is beginning to have an effect also on cheaper wines.
The average price of wine in a carton is 1,14€. This is a small sum, practically like mineral water. Wine in a 0,75 lt. bottle increases to 4,28€ but we are still a long way of the amounts that make it remunerative to cultivate vineyards, which is where about ¼ of the price paid by the consumer goes.

The Bertarelli’s are italo-swiss; they are industrialists in biotechnologies with a passion for sailing and wine which brought them to Montalcino

Montalcino - Sant'Agostino – Bach concert offered by the Fondazione Bertarelli

Ernesto, the genial leader of this industrial group, was mentioned in newspapers al lover the world because of two spectacular victories in the American Cup, the most prestigious sailing competition in the world, he won with his boat Alinghi. In charge of the wine investments is Ernesto’s uncle (his mothers’ brother), Claudio Tipa with the wineries Grattamacco in Bolgheri, Colle Massari in Montecucco and recently, Poggio di Sotto in Montalcino. It is in fact this new arrival on the Brunello hill which has opened up a scenario of new collaboration with the involvement of the “Fondazione Bertarelli”. The first step has been this concert “Sacrificio Musicale di Johann Sebastian Bach” which took place in the Chiesa di Sant’Agostino on May 4th 2012 with all of the Montalcino inhabitants and producers as guests.

The concert, in a new key of interpretation by Hans-Ederhard Dentler, was done for the first time in Tuscany. This composition dedicated to the king Federico II di Prussia and evolves in two fugues and ten canons with three and six voices.

Montalcino -Chiostro di Sant'Agostino – glass window by Bartolo di Fredi

This sophisticated concert has been the best way to introduce the family to the Montalcino community and to become part of it. It also gave

Maria Iris Tipa Bertarelli and Claudio Tipa the opportunity to illustrate the activities of the Fondazione Bertarelli. All of the Montalcino population hopes in a larger help from the Fondazione in the renovation of the Chiesa di Sant’Agostino. For the concert it was cleaned and vacated, but this is not enough to recreate its splendour of long ago. There are no tiles on the floor, no lighting and no heating…. To see the frescoes by Bartolo di Fredi covered with protective sheets to impede the deterioration, is really sad, and everyone hopes that the Bertarelli family will seal their arrival in Brunello land with an intervention which will leave a sign for history of art books but also for the hearts of the men and women in Montalcino and all those who love the village.

The 14th century Church of Sant’Agostino has a particularly troubled history. It was born with the Augustinian convent to which the two cloisters are bound in the 16th century.
Between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the nineteenth, in the era of the French occupation and of the Viva Maria, it was used as stables. It stayed in a state of abandon until my grandfather Giovanni Colombini had it repaired and opened up as a place of worship around 1940. Every inhabitant of Montalcino has a personal memory of Sant’Agostino, weddings , first communions, funerals.…. the rector Don Guido, uncle to the new mayor Silvio Franceschelli, the last bishop Vescovo Staccioli and his preaching always full of humanity …

This Church needs a new guardian angel and everyone hopes that he has arrived.

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini