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Minerality in wine: yeast not terroir

Many now exclude a connection between the  mineral ‘licked stones’ character in wine and the soil, they believe that it is the yeasts in wine that give flint aroma

Chablis

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

More and more research is being done as the fashion for mineral character increases especially in English speaking nations. All wineries would like to give a mineral touch to their wines, but until the cause in unknown it will be difficult to increase

Minerality

Now everyone is sure that it does not come from the soil. Researchers now smile at the widespread idea that stones give taste and aroma to wines. <<With the odd and fairly irrelevant exceptions like sodium chloride, by and large, minerals have no taste.>> says Alex Maltman, geologist at the Aberystwyth University!

A vineyard on the roof among the skyscrapers

Vines grown on rooftops in New York, Rooftop Reds, have been talked about the world over, and it’s really easy. Let me tell you how to grow an urban vineyard

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Rooftop Reds New York

As there are many urban vegetable gardens now the vineyard on the loft must not create illusions: this will not be the beginning of a career at will bring to a managerial role at Château Lafite Rothschild.

Rooftop Reds Team

However it is a new trend. And it is a lot less complicated than what it might seem. All you need is a terrace and a lot of passion. The idea comes from Devin Shomaker, a young New Yorker who is also about to be financed to develop the project. The vineyard on the terrace seems about to duplicate the success of vegetables grown on the balcony and tomatoes grown in bags.  This type of production has been studied for residual toxins absorbed from traffic. To swap domestic productions for something else that was absolutely healthy, only because they have no pesticides is wrong because leaves can also absorb heavy metals in polluted air. However to grow plants is however a fun activity and it stimulates the consumption of vegetables so it must be encouraged.

Fettuccine all'Alfredo, the true story behind a cult dish 

This is the lovely story about Alfredo di Lelio creator of the “Fettuccine Alfredo” born as a reconstituent for his wife after the birth of their first child 

Alfredo Di Lelio with John Kennedy

by Ines di Lelio from the  Ristorante “Il vero Alfredo” – “”Alfredo di Roma”

With pleasure I would like to tell you about my grandfather Alfredo Di Lelio, born in September 1883 in Rome in Vicolo di Santa Maria in Trastevere. He began working as a young man in a small trattoria belonging to his mother Angelina in Piazza Rosa, where there was a small square, that disappeared around 1910, and existed before the construction of the Galleria Colonna now Galleria Sordi.

1908 was an incredible year for Alfredo Di Lelio: his son Armando was born and at the same time his fettuccine were born in the trattoria in Piazza Rosa, these then became famous all over the world. This trattoria was “the birthplace of fettuccine all’Alfredo”.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Alfredo Di Lelio invented his  “fettuccine” as a natural reconstituent made with butter and Parmigiano, for his wife (my grandmother) Ines, prostrated after given birth to her first child (my father Armando) The dish “fettuccine” was a family success before being the dish that made famous and popular Alfredo Di Lelio, a character with a moustache like Umberto I di Savoia and calluses on his hands because of making his  “fettuccine” in front of his numerous clients.

Orange wines many sommelier's salvation

Lisa Cardelli AIS sommelier born in Lucca and now in Melbourne explains Orange wines, a niche category, non academic and often looked upon with scepticism

Lisa Cardelli AIS Sommelier

By Lisa Cardelli

My first experience with an orange wine was in 2010 when I was not yet an AIS sommelier and I was lucky to work in Sydney as Commis Sommelier in an Italian restaurant. From their very interesting wine list I chose, one day, the only bottle left, and for a long time unsold, of the  Denavolo Dinavolo from Romagna, I was mostly curious that there could be an orange coloured wine, rather than by its name. My first impression was that the wine was awfully oxidized and undrinkable!

Decanting Orange wines

At the same time its tannic structure and full taste left me perplexed and brought me to talk about this wine for days, without being able to come to conclusions about its quality

Since then I have been more and more curious about this category of wines. Here are some that I have tasted.

Future consumtion, between exclusivity, nature and technology

Wine Intelligence presented the Global Consumer Trends & Category, the show a frenetic world that swings between localism ethics wellness and exclusivity

Selfie tour in Paris proposed by the Mandarin Hotel

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

9 trends on the up around the world do show a lifestyle in rapid evolution where technology plays an always more important part

Instant – examples go from wine served in plastic cups to the app in Starbucks to order coffee and pay with your mobile phone

Active – to be involved. Do you remember the bucket of frozen water- the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Customized Coca Cola

Among the good involving things an example the English winery Chapel Down offers visitors the possibility of taking home a vine or the opportunity to create a wine. Much more attractive the proposal by the French Mon Potager who allow the possibility to have a vegetable garden at a distance, the wine lovers chooses which vegetables to plant, how to cultivate them, and then receive them at home when they are ready to be eaten.

Sensory – “multisensoriality”, here we go from an electric shock which allows future dads to feel the pains of childbirth felt by their companion, to the apparatus that transmits noises and odours. A lot better is the “sonic wine bar” in New Zealand that matches music to wine tastings.