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The best rosé Champagne according to Tom Stevenson

Rosé Champagneis surely the trendiest and most expensive bubbly wine. Tom Stevenson and Cristiana Lauro present those they think are best

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini 

The article by Wine Searcher is delightful and I really suggest you read it. It is sufficiently ironic, definitely well informed and full of intriguing news.  The author is considered the major world expert in Champagne having written 23 books and 50 publications on the subject 

So the rosé Champagne , many super experts do not love it – Jancis Robinson in primis –

but certainly its success seems now unstoppable.

The first boom took place in  1989 when Allan Cheesman chose the rosé Champagne Charbaut for the  Sainsbury’s supermarket emphasizing that the colour was obtained through a  natural method because of the contact between the juice and the skins of red grapes and not through mixing red and white wines. This small curiosity made the sales go sky high. A success which, then, did not last long, but which picked up again in 2004 becoming something more than a trend but a real commercial phenomenon. Today all the Maison de Champagne have a rosé wine in their range and 10% of the total production is pink. So now theChampagnerosé is no longer an “occasional kink” and the wineries have really begun to the think about the bettering of quality.

In wine tasting women beat men

This time the source is scientific and The Drinks Business writes <<It is official: by nature women are better tasters than men>>

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

This news creates a real earthquake in the foundations of the wine world where the wine tasters for guide books and specialized press are mainly men. Great cheering from the Donne del Vino Association – women in wine who have always had faith in women’s abilities. But lets see in detail who this revolutionary affirmation form, even though, it was long overdue. It is Deborah Parker, associate director of the UK Sensory Science Tasting and Research

Centre in Westerham in Kent. It is a sensorial laboratory that studies in depth the characteristics of products we consume; it creates profiles for them and proposes how to modify them according to the taste of the consumer. In other words they are among those specialists who, behind the scenes build the taste of new products making them more likeable. Ms Parker said << the sensorial analysis team at the centre is made up of only women>>.

Introducing you Ye Liu Jie, the first Chinese AIS sommelier

AIS sommelier courses are attended by Russian, Indians, Japanese, and in Milan the AIS Hosam Eldin Abou Eleyoun has Egyptian origins.

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Ye Liu Jie is the first Chinese sommelier graduated in Italy after attendine the 3 levels of AIS courses. Alessandra Coppola discovered her, and she dedicated her an article on Corriere della Sera. The important Italian newspaper from Milan and its wine blog DiVini, written by Luciano Ferraro, are always talking about unsual aspects of the wine environment, portraits and stories that can represent the most real actuality of wine.

Delicious things that smell: camembert, truffles, casumarzu ….

Some things, even though very tasty, have a terrible odour, but some are actually foul, here is the list of the most disgusting

 

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

I got this idea from a fun article by Carlotta Girola on Dissapore where she describes the food that are delicious to the palate but nauseating to the nose. Here list of the 5+1 of the most terrible includes: camembert de Normandie, white truffles (smells of gas), coke cabbage, foie gras which reminds her of cat food  and e surströmming, canned herring at length fermented which maybe only the Swedes can actually eat. To these she adds, hors concours, the Puzzone di Moena a cheese which suitably meets its name (smelly)

 

Starting from this first list i have continued to investigate among disgusting smells destined to the table and I have found some really impressive ones, such as kiviaq fromGreenland. This is sea-lion stuffed with small sea birds which are inserted raw with their feathers and left to decompose for three months. When the sea-lion skin is opened the smell is atrocious.

The 10 superwomen in the Italian wine world according to Drinks Business

Chiara Lungarotti, Silvia Franco, Francesca Planeta, Daria Garofoli, Gaia Gaja, Josè Rallo, Elena Martusciello, Sabrina Tedeschi, Cristina Mariani, Marilisa Allegrini. 

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The article is in “Drinks Business” which is a British web magazine on wine, beer and spirits, among the most up to date and authoritative. One of its strong points is the lists that it produces regarding all sorts of subjects and always with interesting and innovative ideas. The author of this report is Tom Bruce Gardyne a Scottish journalist and super Whisky expert but he is also extremely interested in wine. Recently he wrote a beautiful article about the Etna wines.

 

The  Top 10 women in Italian wine list begins with a comment typical to British humour <<The days of  Italian wine being a man’s world with women in the background doing the paperwork are now fading as many daughters take over the reins>>. Tom Bruce-Gardyne meets 10 women making a difference. 

Image and Imagination in Wine Tourism

Here is why, how much, where and how wine tourism – virtual and real – influences the perception of the value of wine, its appreciation and its sales

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini for OICCE

Two thirds of the value of wine perceived is not wine. Price, sales position, packaging, history, places, personalities… Each of these elements signifies a perception of value. In this post we will talk about vineyards, winery, the area where a wine is born and the people who help to create it. We will see how the territory of origin can, if well used, increase the appeal and increase customer loyalty towards a wine region or towards a single producer. Wine tourism is the instrument for this process and it is powerful. The first element to be understood is the dimension of this instrument.
Since 2012 the world travellers have become more than 1 billion and they increase at a rhythm of 4% per year. In Italy, in 2013, the arrivals of travellers from abroad were 46 million, finally our tourism has begun once again to grow even though with a modest 1,9%. Wine tourism increases more rapidly (around 3% per year) but not in a uniform manner. The 5-6 million travellers who every year visit wine regions over here generated business esteemed at about 3 billion euro between direct turnover and generated; for every euro paid in a winery, the wine tourist spends another 4 in the same area.

All that you need to know about Robert Mondavi

The courage needed for great challenges and the difficulties in dealing with success in the family. The rising and decline of a winery that has left a mark in the 20th century.

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Most of the information below comes from a beautiful article on WineSearcker which I am inviting you to read with attention because it will deeply move you and make you reflect.
This is a portrait of one of the greatest wine makers of all times, a persona who has changed the wine making destiny of a whole nation: Robert Mondavi.
I have never actually met him but I have met his son Michael, he was introduced to me by Ferdinando Frescobaldi. I remember him as a very politeperson who surprised me because he was short.

Maybe even Robert Mondavi, was not so tall, but as a producer he was a giant.

An example for us all especially for those who say: I haven enough money for…..I haven the age for …..
There was once a family form the March who emigrated to Minnesota where in 1908 a little boy was born, called Robert Gerald. The father Cesare then went to live in California where he buys the Charles Krug Winery where his sons Robert, and Peter the smallest, work.

In 1966 the two brothers have a discussion which degenerates into a real fight and Robert goes slamming the door. Robert Mondavi at the point is 53 years of age, and has no money and no job. From this crisis his fortune begins. “The up side of down” as affirmed byMegan Mc Ardle, editorialist at Bloomberg View, where she sustains that development and innovation come from defeats.

Do you follow others or are you independent in judging wine?

A study carried out by the American Association of Wine Economists, “In vino veritas” says that we are like sheep

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

The questions is not a light one in an era where there is a democratization regarding wine opinions. In fact some of the consumers feel that the web and most of portals such as CellarTracker, where everyone can write their opinion, have brought on a revolution which deprives the great experts of authoritativeness and gives the final consumer a say in the matter. In other words bringing in a breath of objectiveness and renewal.

Maybe it is not exactly so, in fact a very interesting article published in “Wine economics” dated May 2014 entitled “In vino veritas? Social influence on ‘private’ wine evaluations at a wine social networking site” (Omer Gokcekus School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, USA, Miles Hewstone Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, UK, Huseyin Cakal Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, UK) demonstrates how the CellarTracker opinions are very conform . In other words the ratings depend, still, vastly, upon the great wine critics, but mostly by the first ratings published, so it’s a paradox really, the possibility of opinions being “manoeuvred” has actually increased.

The most envied: Torres, Casillero del D. Latour and Tignanello

These are the brands that are most admired (or at least the most envied) in the world. Torres wins but the Italian Tignanello is in fourth position

Read by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Drinks International, has got us used to lists of all sorts in a world scenario that usually penalizes the Italian wineries but this time the most famous wine by Marchese Piero Antinori is fourth, just off the podium .
The list of the most admired wine brands is obtained through a vote by 200 experts among which Masters of Wine, journalists, retailers, analysts, buyers and quite a few academics..
1 Torres
2 Casillero del Diablo
3 Château Latour
4 Tignanello
5 Penfolds