The Prime Donne conquer the  NY Wine Experience

The Prime Donne conquer the  NY Wine Experience

Let me take you to the New York Wine Experience by Wine Spectator, this is the most exclusive wine tasting in the world, with the most important wineries in the world

by Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Montalcino, Casato Prime Donne

Here one finds Champagne Salon, Chateaux Lafite Rothschild, Chateaux Margaux, Opus One, Chateau d’Yquem, Penfolds… myths from the wine world. IN their midst I feel so excited, like a child. To be invited to the Wine Experience has always been a dream of mine but I really thought it would never be possible, like winning an Oscar or the Nobel Prize. But I am here and after only 18 years from the birth of my wineries.

Angelo Gaja, as always so kind, comes towards me in the Marriott Marquis hall where each producer has a table to pour their wine. He embraces me and says  <<they should have invited you sooner, you deserve this!>>. Among the producers are also Piero Antinori with Solaia and Lamberto Frescobaldi with Masseto but nobody gets the same reaction as a star like Angelo.

The French wineries have shipped all their wines in wooden cases and before the arrival of the guests they decant them. Noblesse oblige! There is a lot to be learned from them, but there are some Italian wineries that do the same, Sassicaia for example.

The  265 wineries invited to participate in the Wine Experience are divided n two enormous halls, where regardless of the cost of  2.495 $ per person, thousands of operators and collectors from all over the USA participate . Each producer serves few drops per taster but there are so many of these myth wines that the doses are apt for the occasion. I concentrate on Pinot Noir: New Zealand, Oregon … and naturally Bourgogne .I am surprised by the common style as if they keep an eye on each other, deep complexity of excellent grapes accompanied by an oak effect maybe a little too pronounced. But all so good!

I am invited to present my wine at the seminary which is a guided tasting. The hall is scary with a thousand people and 15.000glasses in front of us 4 Brunello producers (as well as my 2010 Riserva there are those by Mastrojanni, Altesino and Campogiovanni) we are seated on a stage waiting to be presented by Bruce Sanderson and to go and speak on the platform for 5 minutes each.

I am scared but I get up and begin telling the story of my Casato Prime Donne, the challenge of an all female winery. Luckily my legs to not give way. The public interrupts me and applauds laughs and encourages me. I’ve managed it. But when I sit down I want to cry. My goodness, a dream come true. Group photograph and then whiskey away by our importer. My daughter Violante embraces me and takes care of me with kindness and patience. Good job too as the vertebra I broke last year hurts.

During the tasting that follows the seminary many women and some men come to compliment me on my winery of only women. The Wine Experience concludes with a vertical tasting of Chateau Lafite . The Baron de Rothschild underlined the exceptionality of the event  <<this is the most expensive tasting I have ever given>>  ad in fact multiplying 80 bottles for each of the vintages tasted and at the present market prices  the total is around 200.000€. A little music show by Sting, who sang a song and sang it again during the gala dinner in the Marriott Ballroom. In this case too the dimensions are enormous, a thousand people and a really impressive wine list, that the value of the wines served probably is more than 500.000 euro.

Another few notes about our trip to Vancouver and New York: in Canada it rained without stopping for three days, but Violante and I however had a boat tour of the bay , we sold lots of Brunello and bought two extraordinary handmade . In New York the heat was practically summery. Dinner at Felidia with Tanya Bastianich gives me the opportunity to learn something on restaurant management, I have learnt more from her in half an hour, between one delicious course and the other, than from all the books I have read. The Bastianich family is a family of geniuses who from nothing have become celebrities in the food world and have built an empire made up of tens of restaurant. You don’t find teachers like this at very corner!