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The first wine always seems the best

Upon tasting the second wine is the most penalized but at the fifth the mind resets and the work begins again. Colours and sounds influence the tasting

Bibenda Day tasting

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If you must organize a tasting be careful of the order of the wines: the one that must stand out must be served first or sixth but never second.

Sicily-en-primeur-2013 wines

The ability to evaluate for the nose and mouth tires very rapidly and so it is better to have a pause after 10 or 15 wines. Then there are colours that influence the sensorial opinion: if the wine has a slight lack of balance in the acidity and the room is green or yellow it will practically be indistinguishable, while if we must convince the American importer who loves wines that are very round, if we surround him with yellow things he will feel the wine sweet components really well. With bitter tasted colour have little effect though and one must use a melody with sombre music such as “Nessun dorma” by Puccini, Pavarotti’s voice will make the dry finish disappear in an instant.

As you will understand I have played with results of scientific research but I have also understood that the neurosciences can have practical applications also in wine tastings.

How much is a winery worth?

Is the wine world made of gold? For 229 wineries producing more than 50,000 hl  it is, for the 66,000 small and medium ones that are in difficulty it is not

Constellation Brands

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The giants abroad that are on the stock Exchange have flown sky high: Constellation Brand is worth 16 billion euro and is expecting more than 700 million in profits in 2015. Everyone else is nothing in comparison, but a part form the Chinese, many have doubled their value on the exchange: Concha y Toro and Distell, Trearury Wine Estate. So the world of shares believes in wine, and is willing to invest in it too…. if the companies are large.  I numeri del vino, very well informed and truthful web site regarding economic analysis,

<< the two small ones we have for our study,

Farm welcoming

Delegat’s and Baron de Ley, are  40% cheaper in terms of price and value on EBITDA and EBIT, while they travel along the same evaluation regarding sales (2.4 times) as the rest. This means that their “superior profitability” does not yet get recognized by the market.>> Obviously these are “small giants” not small, really small, like the majority of Italian wineries

Here in Italy the wine sector is made up of a mosaic of 383.000 grape growers with little more than one and a half hectares each. Confetti. A situation which does not help us when we compete on the global battle field, against  Chile, for example where the concentration in the 4 largest wineries is of  85%, New Zealand 80%, Australia 61%, 50% USA … Italy 7,6%.

Pop-up restaurants: how social can you get?

For those who invite there are no obligatory health standards, very little bureaucracy, some earnings, and lots of friends all over the world

Ms MarmiteLover

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Don’t laugh, I really thought I knew all of the new tourism trends but I had not heard of this one: pop up restaurant,set up in private homes to be booked online. How cool! You arrive in New York, you don’t know anyone, and then after one week, choosing carefully where to go for dinner, you have had so much fun, you have seen how one lives in the Big Apple, you have plenty of new friends, and maybe you have even done business.

Le Cesarine

Then there is the other aspect: those who know how to cook, have a fancy home and are not scared of  opening their home up to strangers, offering  home food have found a way of earning some money ( the maximum is  5.000€ per year with receipt) and a way of meeting lots of people. I found the first news on Dissapore, one of my favourite blogs, and then it opened a whole new world for me

For many years we have had Le Cesarine practically super housewives cultivators of the traditional gastronomy who offer meals in their homes and organize cookery courses. Alongside their activity a new a new phenomena has appeared, which is much trendier, where the good food is important but what is essential is to live in a touristy area, to be sociable and to know some English. It seems that the pioneer was Ms Marmitelover who in 2009 created a secret restaurant in London. Her website is a masterpiece, and collects awards for photos, recipes and the events….

Temporary wine marketing manager: new profession for wineries

Sara Carmignola comes from a new profession, she organizes “tailor made” commercial and communication programmes, events and even the estate staff

Sara Carmignola

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A marketing manager “on loan” to be shared with other wineries, this is the proposal from diSara Agency, created in Padova by Sara Carmignola. A profession which already exist for other production sectors and that now will also be available for small and medium sized wineries for which it is far too expensive to have a manager in the team.

She has worked for Veronafiere for 15 years as Project Manager and as Exhibition Manager, dealing with food and its technologies. She has very clear the meaning what it means for a wine, to get or to better visibility and higher positioning both in a national and international market.

Her actions in a winery that becomes a client, starts from analyzing its specificities and the entire characteristics of the enterprise, so as  to study a personalized project which will increase sales and image. A commercial plan which will benefit from a vast portfolio of contacts, competence in studying foreign markets planning of actions and a checking of the results.

The pop winery in Cannubi, art or provocation?

The winery Astemia Pentita created by Gianni Arnaudo in the Langhe sets off a dispute: better to innovate or preserve the wine landscapes?

L’Astemia Pentita winery Langhe

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The story is recent but able to tickle the curiosity of all those who love Barolo.

Sandra Vezza, a lively Piedmont lady is head of Italgelatine, a leading industrial group in the production of jelly and more recently of Gufram in the design world. Life has not treated her too well, she was widowed when 29, with a small child, but she was able to react and face life with courage and resourcefulness. She was a teetotaller when 6 years ago she bought a winery on the most famous hill in Barolo, Cannubi. To build her Astemia Pentita winery she asked a friend for some help, the architect, Gianni Arnaudo, also from Piemonte and with an International fame.Arnaudo hates anything that is banal or worse still foreseeable. So he designs for Sandra an underground winery with two wine boxes on top where the offices and tasting rooms will be. When I say boxes I do mean parallelepipeds which resemble enormous wooden wine boxes