Our Brunello wines and Violante fly to Vilnius in Lithuania
I should have arrived in Lithuaniaa day early but due to disorganised and delayed flights I arrived in Vilnius very tired and very late, it was actually after
Vilnius-Brunello Tasting - May 2012
midnight. The taxi driver joked about the fact that at least now that we are all European there is ‘No Russian Mafia’ to keep me awake. Of course I have very strong memories of all the Lithuanian invasions, mass killings and bloody battlefields which this country has endured during its history, some of which were quite recent! We hope that the future will be much more peaceful for them. My hotel, the ‘Stikiai Hotel’ was right in the centre of the historic city and is a piece of local history itself. It is decorated with dark wood with a central courtyard and all the bedrooms leading off of it. The city has a very large and well-preserved Baroque quarter which is recognised as a UNESCO Heritage site just like Montalcino.
The Wine Event Monday on May 14th went very well.
At noon all the wineries presented their Brunello seminars, it was a wine tasting which was preceded by
an explanation about the territory where the wine was produced and the names of the wines. From 1pm until to 5pm there were workshops where each winery had its own table where they presented their wines to the delegates. A lot of interesting people attended the event, many importers and many restaurants from the area. It almost seems that, in order to decide to include a wine in their wine list, the restaurants sent their most beautiful employees to taste the wine; they were all very tall, very blonde and very beautiful! Maybe
Violante Gardini - Vilnius - May 2012
the Lithuanians thought that they would get the best prices from the Italian producers if they sent the local beauties to do the negotiating?
six o’clock all the producers from Montalcino, together with the head of the Consortium of Brunello Wines, Stefano Campatelli, jumped on a bus which took them to Riga. It was a 4 hour trip with one stop because the driver was not allowed to drive for longer than two hours straight without stopping for thirty minutes. But the journey was great fun, giving us an opportunity to swop amusing stories, to have a good gossip and even to sample a few delicious bottles along the way.
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