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After street food, now its wine's turn to be served in the street

In USA the best wineries begin selling their wines on the street, and in Italy we have Caràvin that offers great wines by young wine makers

Caràvin

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

In Portland in Oregon, Ryan Harms (owner and winemaker of the  Union Wine Co. Winery born in  2005,and producing at present 1.300.000 bottles has transformed  a 1972 Citroën van into an itinerant chrome  tasting room . He began his activity in June  2014 offering his Pinot Noir’s while they were being tasted also at the International Pinot Noir Conference. A serious provocation if there ever was one!

His plan was very simple << we are always on the lookout to find a way of introducing wine to the public…>>.

I find this approach extraordinary, and very modern and fun. In Italy it would be a real blow for a brand ….imagine  Sassicaia being tasted in the street! Yet our boring old ways can change. And searching on the web  find WineStreet from Asti who last September organized itinerant tastings. A very modern style, an audience of young wine lovers but the locations were actually buildings.

More than 10 million tourists visit Italian wineries

As everyone knows data regarding wine tourism in Italy is uncertain but Wine Monitor by Nomisma makes us think that wine tourists might be double what we thought up until now

Castello della sala barrel ageing area

Seen for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

This research has been carried out by Denis Pantini from Nomisma and financed by the Consorzio vini del Trentino. This is what they say: 9% of foreign tourists and  4,7% of Italians travel thanks to a prevalently gastronomic interest. Out of caution, regarding especially the figures to follow, it must be said that Bankitalia indicates on the other hand in 730.000 (2012) so 1,5% of the total the foreign visitors attracted by wine and food. More similar to the Nomisma percentages are though those that come from the Osservatorio Nazionale del Turismo that however regard 2010.

Valpolicella wine store and restaurant

Going back to the percentages indicated by the research centre in Bologna these are the figures available: 16 million foreigners and 7,8 Italians considering all our compatriots, children included, as the wine and food tourism is made up mostly of “day trips”, (86% of the total according to WineNews) so a journey with a radius of less than 100 km from home.

This information seems to increase the number of visitors of Italian wineries. In if fact if it is true that the number of visitors for wine and food go to visit the “mysterious underground Bacchus locations” there is however a quota of them that visits more than one winery during the year.

Giorgio Dalla Cia, an Italian wine man in South Africa

The Italian winemaker who has divulged wine to be cellared in South Africa. Giorgio Dalla Cia from Friuli to Meerlust

Giorgio Dalla Cia

Seen for you by Carlo Gardini 
South Africa: wonderful beaches, incredible nature, and a simple lifestyle although full of incredible refined things… I remember a meal in a resort in the savannah, in a small restaurant that seats about 20 guests, furnished like a Victorian home. In front there is an artificial lake full of birds and wild geese which was lit by torches, in the background the Drakensberg mountains …. At the table we were served delicacies apt for a starred restaurant matched with exquisite wines ……..there is only one thought in my mind: when will I be able to come back?

My wife Donatella (Cinelli Colombini) and I began visiting South Africa 15 years ago, and for 6 years we went really often. We were so fascinated by this nation that we tried to create a wine project in the Cape region.

We visited practically all of the important wineries at that time, we met the owners and the winemakers, and we made friends, people with whom still today we are in contact regardless of the distance and the time passing. One of the first people we met was Giorgio Dalla Cia < if you go to South Africa and you love wine you must meet Giorgio > we were told. And so we met him. He is a wine maker from Azzano Veneto, expert in mushrooms and with a passion for archaeology and metal detectors. He is a traditionalist, perfectionists, and like all intelligent people he is unconventional and courageous.
Giorgio is always kind and smiles a lot, he dresses in an informal manner as the South Africans do, and he always has a hat with him.  Simonetta his wife is a splendid cook organizes Italian cookery lessons and has divulged our cuisine in South Africa. Their home is like a Friuli house with garden and pool, transferred to Cape Town.  Furniture, books lifestyle even the TV programs give one the impression of being in Italy.

What a scandal! Prosecco on tap

In London they sell it as  “Sparkling Italian wine” and it’s all the rage: Pizza Pilgrims in Soho, Tozi in Victoria and the Covent Garden restaurant

prosecco on tap

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

It all started just before Christmas when a pub in Leeds promoted via Facebook Prosecco on tap. This news was then picked up by the Daily Mail and got a hashtag on Twitter that was very successful #proseccoontap. At that point the Veneto producers our out for blood soliciting the intervention of the Ispettorato centrale della tutela della qualità e repressione frodi.

commonprosecco

In fact the European rulings impose the sale of Prosecco only in bottles. So the name of the wine was substituted and became  “Sparkling Italian wine”  but the type of wine has remained the same both in its aromas and in its taste. And the pub landlords use the “said and unsaid” to commercialize it as Prosecco even without specifically writing it.