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Marqués de Riscal and their masterpiece wine city

Known news and unknown news regarding the Spanish estate that has revolutionized the Rioja wine and architecture in the wine world: here for you Marqués de Riscal 

marqués de riscal

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Marqués de Riscal, for those who like me adore great wines and contemporary architecture is a name that is a myth. The wine city –hotel, restaurant and museum- designed by Frank Gehry next to their winery is one of the absolute masterpieces of the 20th century. Bolder than the  Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and the  Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, bolder because it’s varicoloured  titanium volutes  disturb the old peace of Rioja, its vineyards, the old villages with cathedral and bell tower, the stone walls and the curvy roads. Like light in the darkness, like something new arriving in the old countryside, wonderful!

For this reason the article by Tim Atkin Master of Wine published in Wine Searcher has attracted my attention. It is entitled <<The 10 things that every wine lover should know about Marqués de Riscal>>

Coravin, a really explosive novelty

Coravin the corkscrew destined to revolutionize the consumption of expensive wines because it exploded

Coravin

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

At the beginning of the year Robert Parker had cited the diffusion of Coravin in 7th position among the most significant trends in 2014. The father of “Wine Advocate” was convinced that Coravin would revolutionize the consumption of luxury wines making it accessible also for wine lovers who were not millionaires. And in fact the possibility of drinking a little from a bottle worth 5-10.000 Euro without having to pay for all of it made it a great opportunity for lovers of great wines, those who enjoy their bottles and don’t keep them in a vault so as to gain value.
Cold shower though!

Coravin esploded!

Chefs will be the most sought after experts in the future

According to the authoritative US Bureau of Labour Statistics the most searched for and those getting the higher pay during the next 5 years will be chefs

jamie-oliver-Uk

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

A degree in Medicine? No!
A Major in electronic engineering abroad? Don’t’ bother!
If you want to find a job learn how to cook! This message arrives from a study carried out by the American organ regarding occupation. And we the Italians are in pole position with 160.000 restaurants in our nation, without mentioning the cake stores, delicatessens, ice-cream parlours ……and of course the quantity of Italian restaurants in the world and the fame of our dishes. So dear aspiring chefs, the things to learn are two, technique in the kitchen and the English language.

Pétrus the perfect Merlot myth

Pétrus bottles have an average cost of 2.000€, which for great vintages can also become 68.000€. The brief and dazzling story of a non chateau

Pétrus 1961

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

It is out of every list but remains the myth of myths of Merlot on a worldwide scale and has its highest price among the top most expensive wines in the world on Wine Searcher.
I’ve only been there once during a course The Bordeaux Faculty of Oenology at theUniversity ofBordeaux and I remember that I was speechless for its small dimension and not at all monumental appearance. The vines practically reached the gate in front of the winery, on a flat piece of land. It was winter and the vines had been cut back, I remember that I together with other course members took some cuttings which we brought back toItaly in our luggage wit the intention of having, in our vineyards, a little piece of the Pomerol star.

The winery building is a low one with arch decorations, only recently ha sit been

chateau petrus

enlargedusing a refectory designed by Herzog & de Meuron  the Swiss architects of the Allianz Arena in Monaco and the National Stadium in Beijing.

Everything, be it the old part and the new, is of a practically sacred austerity. As are the concrete vats, which when I visited, seemed old fashioned, and today in sight of the new fashion of egg shake vats in pure cement, seem to have been the foregoers of a modernity with ancient roots.

The Pétrus Merlot stays 21 months in new barriques and then in 54.000 bottles with a retrò label that is quite ugly. Nothing else. The myth is all in the11,4 hectares of Vineyard and in its mysterious soil which is clave and rich in iron, which, according to them, makes it different to all the other vineyards nearby. The doubt regarding the diversity of this terroir comes when we discover that the owners, the Moueix, control many of the allotments nearby.

100.000 “Italian restaurants” abroad are frauds

In 59% of cases Italian restaurants abroad do not have chefs that are Italian or that are able to prepare our recipes and do not have Italian ingredients

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Felidia-New-York

VinoWay attracted my attention regarding something that I had always suspected: abroad the majority of Italian restaurants are frauds, in other words the chef is Lebanese or Greek and if he is Italian he previously had a completely different profession. The false restaurants are those with a more “nostalgic” aspect with chequered tablecloths, wicker seated chairs and the Italian flag in the window, in other words the recall the restaurants on the Trastevere in the 1950’s, a postcard stereotype, hat no longer exists.
Often the dishes are oily, overcooked, heavy and not at all pleasant to taste….. and nowhere near what we are used to eating when we go out to dinner. The sensation we get is that of an abundant use of conserves, frozen meat, sunflower seed oil, parmesan o mozzarilla… Fortunately thee bill is nearly always small. Then there are the real Italian restaurants with chefs that have spent years studying our cuisine with excellent teachers. These are where we fin d Italian design in the furnishings, excellent ingredients, and especial great Italian wines and a clientele that can appreciate them. These are the locations that Unioncamere has decided to certify through the RINA society.

Rothschild the banker grape growers

From their immense riches in finance to their extraordinary foresight for excellent vineyards. Here is Eric de Rothschild Chateau Lafite

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

eric-de-rothschild

The Rothschild dynasty begins in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel in the Frankfurt ghetto, he was the one who created the bank and sent is five sons to the five European financial centres creating a formidable business network. During the nineteenth century, when at the apex, the Rothschild’s owned the largest private patrimony in the world, as well as the largest heritage in the world.
The two French branches of the family own two of the most famous and celebrates vineyards, the branch that the founder had originally sent to France bought Chateau Lafite, the other, descendant of the British Rothschild’s, bought Château Moutona Pauillac.

Today the Rothschild group is one of the largest private financial groups in the

Lafite

world with branches in 42 nations, an enormous influence on the planet’s economy, great art collections, but nothing makes them as proud and envied as the wines from their vineyards.