Forum: News and lifestyle

Wine for dogs, with some ethical doubts

Wine, beer, tea for cats and dogs. Drinks for animals are on the up, rigorously without alcohol. For those who want to drink in the company of their pets

Wine for dogs

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, agriturismo pet friendly, Fattoria del Colle

As all pet lovers know cats and dogs cannot drink alcohol, if they do there are great risks for their health. However they adore biscuits, snack etc that pet shops sell in small extremely expensive packets. So, I making the most of the fact that pet owners go mad and buy whatever is liked by their pests the American company Apollo Peak has created a section called Pet Beverage with white , red and sparkling wines. The products have fun names such as mosCato charDOGnay …and include also special tasting glasses for our four legged friends.

Wine-for-dogs-Apollo-Peak

What is most incredible is the success, products that someone like me dog lover and wine producer, would never ever buy. This is what their message more or less says: you come home tired and you want a cuddle and glass of wine, why not share this pleasure with your cat? Ok, only that the so called wine for cats and dogs made with fruit juices and organic aromatic herbs (among which cat grass), contained in an 8 oz bottle, costs around 10 dollars. Sometimes more than the wine in the owner’s glass.

Women of Wine Festival and the Festa delle Donne del Vino

Debra Meiburg queen of wine in China and her event Women of Wine Festival connect with the Festa delle Donne del Vino that now becomes an international network.

Women of Wine Festival (WOW)

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Montalcino, Casato Prime Donne

Debra Meiburg is one of the best known experts in the world: she is the first Master of Wine in Asia and is a member of the Education Committee of the famous British Institute.  She is 7^th among the most influential women in wine in the world according to Global Ranking, her TV show shown in Chinese taxis has 70 million viewers per month, and she is also wine consultant for Cathay Pacific airlines.

In 2008 she created the in Hong Kong a society called Meiburg Wine Media MWM with the scope of divulging wine culture in Asia. It is a real sort off “wine hub” the works in an immense scenario: from New Delhi to Tokyo, from Beijing to Jakarta.

Women of Wine Festival (WOW) Debra Meiburg and other influencers

It is for professionals of this market and for wine lovers but it is a point of reference for all press member of this sector, because, other than the traditional forming activities it offers innovative and stimulating services that allow buyers to explore emerging wines and new trends. A never ending job this, including wine competitions, wine tastings, festivals, workshops, where wineries meet buyers, banding actions and conferences that take abroad a better insight of the Chinese market and help wineries from all over the world to sell in Asia.

Sacred and profane Easter at Fattoria del Colle

Spirituality, nature, guided tours in the winery, tastings of fine wines, brief cookery lessons, and some gluttonous sins for Easter at Fattoria del Colle

Easter-Fattoria del Colle- Agriturismo – Tuscany

Those who like to spend Easter with their family, with friends and with their four legged friends, will find at Fattoria del Colle in the most panoramic and unaltered Tuscany, their perfect location. The right mix of noble traditions and countryside informality, internationally acclaimed fine wines and homemade traditional dishes

In the program one finds also the guided tour with tasting at the Brunello winery Casato Prime Donne and at Fattoria del Colle , where there are also 4 historic halls in the 16th century villa, and stories, very romantic ones, from the history of the estate.

Easter- Vinotherapy-Fattoria del Colle

Two appointments not to be missed are: vertical tasting of 5 Brunello from  1999 to 2013 and a brief cookery lesson to learn how to make “pinci” a homemade pasta and to prepare a Springtime quick and delicious:  ricotta montata.

A special place in the program is held by the lunches and dinners, thse introduce the Tuscan civilization; Baccalà alla fratina from Trequanda for good Friday, then Peposo degli artigiani della terracotta , that legend attributes this invention to Filippo Brunelleschi creator of the dome of  Duomo di Firenze. The prince of the table is the Chianina steak, this white giant breed lives free on the hills around the estate, but has a long history that goes back to Roman times.

The new bottles by celebrities

Wine, Whiskey, Vodka, Tequila, bottles by celebrities can be of all sorts and they make the most of their fame for products that are often commercial

bottles-by-celebrities-Lady-Gaga

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Doc Orcia, Fattoria del Colle

More and more famous people choose to bind their face to a wine or a spirit. It seems to be an irresistible attraction for stars. Maybe the idea is to multiply earnings through their fame, but not always does this work out. Some have earned a great deal like George Clooney who recently sold his Casamigos Tequila for 1 billion US dollars.. Others have been able to make their brands famous such as David Beckham with the whisky Haig Club by Diageo. The there are those who have had parallel successes in wine and in their artistic career without mixing things: such as Jay-Z, who owns Champagne Armand de Brignac. But there have also been some flops such as the concoction of juice and wine Hpnotiq Sparkle by the reality TV star Khloe Kardashian or the England team manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson with the Sven wine brand.

bottles-by-celebrities-Lady-Gaga-and-her-wines

Here in Italy, after the wines by Al Bano, the better known cases of bottles by celebrities are those by Bruno Vespa and by Massimo d’Alema. I think though that they are realizing how difficult it is to reach success with a winery.

The Drinks Business presents us with 10 new bottles by famous people. A bit of everything, particularly odd products too. In most cases though a real question of business making the most of someone’s image.

Taylor Swift launches premium vodka, Big Machine Platinum Filtered and emphasizes its prestige because of the purest water from Tennessee, and of course the connection with the songs.

Lady Gaga to begin with wanted to call her wine range “Grigio Girls” like the song in her last album dedicated to her friend Sonja, who is fighting cancer. Then the name changed to  “Joanne Trattoria Vino Bianco” and “Joanne Trattoria vino Rosso” from the name of the Italian restaurant in New York owned by her father, Joe Germanotta.

Donatella’s 2017: a rich year with a scarce harvest

With my best wishes for 2018, I am sharing some pleasant memories of 2017, that has been a really fantastic year, even though the grapes were scarce

New Year at Fattoria del Colle

Donatella Cinelli Colombini

2017 ,the year that has just finished, was one with fewer grape clusters but with great commercial successes. The Casato Prime Donne winery in Montalcino Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda sell wine in 37 nations and the wines from our vineyards is just about sufficient to cover all the requests. Actually for some wines like Rosso di Montalcino, Cenerentola DOC Orcia and IGT Drago e le 8 Colombe, we have sold the wines from two vintages finishing all the stock while the Brunello 2012 was rationed so we could reach Christmas. Our increase in sales shows a wonderful + 17% considering that Violante’s sales office had no Riserva to sell.

Cenerentola 2017-2018 New Year’s eve at Fattoria del Colle

This success is clearly also to attribute to the quality of the wines (well done the cellar girls!) and some is due to the vineyards, where a daily care of the plants – a return to old winter pruning systems and the organic regime – have permitted the production of excellent grapes even in vintages, such as the last, where the climate went a bit wild. The 2017 grape harvest was scarce especially at Fattoria del Colle where the soil is sandy and where the wild boar and deer have had a feast. After fencing off the vineyards in Montalcino next to be fenced off will be the vineyards in Trequanda.

The country inn and the restaurant went well too with a + 55% and even better the winery sales that are now a good 15% of the wine business.

Brunello 2013, an old style vintage

A Brunello that is elegant, complex, deep and harmonious, that will last decades. After the barrel ageing the Brunello 2013 results extraordinary
In 2013 the ripening of the grapes was slow and the harvest took place at the end of September. An “old style vintage”, as described by Attilio Scienza famous and esteemed Viticulture professor at the University in Milan.. He was the first to understand the quality potential of the vintage.
Lower summer temperatures than the previous years, soil rich in water and a long vegetative cycle are what characterize the 2013 vintage, and are those that traditionally make wines that last , that are complex and memorable.

Brunello 2013 Casato Prime Donne

This characteristics are associated with another element that is just as important: in 2013 the rain disturbed the flowering and so the number and size of the clusters was inferior to usual. The scarce vintages are nearly always the higher quality ones.
To begin with, however, not everybody foresaw the exceptionality of the Brunello 2013, that, subsequently, after the barrel ageing has demonstrated to be of extraordinary complexity, elegance and finesse. A similar situation to the 1999 vintage, that started slowly and then was acclaimed one of the best vintages of the 20th century.

Dirty glassware at the restaurant: a frequent problem

Residual soap, shoddy washings, dust …these are the most frequents problems with dirty glassware in restaurants , and the reasons why clients flee

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Agriturismo, Toscana, Fattoria del Colle

dirty-glassware-at-the restaurant

97% of British clients interviewed by Restaurant Show in London for a survey by the Classeq, declared that they would stop eating immediately if they discovered that they were using dirty glassware.

And the the British are not as fussy as the Japanese! Yet the idea of drinking out of dirty glasses blocks them, and how can one criticize them! The problem is more widespread than one thinks in the Cask beer report it says that one out of three glasses, among those where beer is served, is dirty, and that however 40% of them have defects (opaqueness, ruined rims etc)

dirty-gassware-at-the-restaurant

Soap residue , or those of other chemical products left on glasses also by the glass makers can ruin the aroma and the taste of beer and wine.

Sommeliers have often underlined the necessity of “fresh” glasses to be able to offer an excellent experience to clients, and complain that this aspect is often underestimated because of bad washing equipment. To the hygienic problem the other problem is often added, smell from the detergents or of food in the case of dishwashers used for dishes, cutlery as well as for glasses.

Going back to hygiene, it is quite surprising to read the list of “the germiest things in a restaurant” taken from an  ABC News report divulged by Huffington Post Usa and then by the blog  cantello.it .

The flûte glass: for or against?

I am among those who hate  flûte glasses and also coupe shake ones that fill cabinets taking up loads of space. But many still insist in using them

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

Many of us have the coupe shake wine glasses, maybe we have inherited them or we have them as they were a wedding gift received from our mothers or grandmothers. But they have remained in our cabinets unused for decades. <<The size of  Madame de Pompadour’s bosom>> the experts used to say, emphasizing the beauty of  Luis XV of France’s lover  and the fantastic story behind  Champagne, that this extraordinary glass should exalt.

This is also the opinion of Marco Cenedese ambassador for Mumm who underlines, how in the coupe,

chateau-Baccarat-

the amber liquid reaches the tip of the tongue before the bubbles thus resulting delicate and full , while in the  flûte  it gets a drier and more determined character. The tapered wine glass that gets its name from a flute, in French flûte, is the most used Champagne glass but also the most contested. In a recent article in The Drinks Business the CEO for Krug, Maggie Henriquez, made this comparison <<..it is like going to a concert with ear plugs>> . However, in most French bars dedicated to these legendary bubbles, the so called champagneries, they use the typical glasses, ampoule shaped, that look like a flute with a wide and round base. So the  flûte has a vast number of estimators. I do not feel that it is able to exalt a fizzy wine, but however together with the cold temperature it can hide the defects in lower quality bottles.

TripAdvisor instructions

150 million visitors per month, TripAdvisor is certainly the largest travel site in the world and now it supplies maps and itineraries too

TripAdvisor-Fattoria-del-Colle

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Fattoria del Colle, agriturismo, Toscana

TripAdvisor was created in 2000 by  Stephen Kaufer. At that time Kaufer was planning a trip to Mexico and was having difficulty in finding hotels. Today he has assets for 260 million dollars and he is among the men who have changed the world. Exactly, as his invention, based on the where anybody can register and write their opinion about a hotel, a restaurant or a museum, has changed how people travel allowing tourists to become more active and allowing for more “democratic” reviews.

The novelty, announced at the IFA fair in Berlin, is the alliance between TomTom and Tripadvisor, to create personalized itineraries that unite maps from the GPS navigation device with reviews from the most famous travel platform . It is called “TomTom Road Trips” and allows one to book hotels and restaurants inside a made to fit itinerary. For those who do not have GPS an Android or iOS Smartphone will do fine.

TripAdvisor

Today  TripAdvisor has an enormous importance for all activities and the 4,2 million restaurants present on the website can use it as a marketing instrument. For this reason it is the same managers of the portal to reveal the most important things to do.

First of all reply to the reviews, accepting criticism as advice and thanking for the compliments. The client that receives attention is gratified and tends to increase his involvement with the restaurant.

Second thing, the images. These influence a lot the clients decision and so there must be many and they must be beautiful. Those who have at least 11-20 charming photos of the restaurant and its dishes get double the interactions compared to those who have none.

James Suckling Cavaliere della Stella d'Italia

Magnum party with 200 great big bottles to celebrate James Suckling, who has been nominated Cavaliere della Stella D’Italia for having promoted Italian wines the world over

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini, Montalcino, Brunello, Casato Prime Donne

<< I am deeply honoured and touched>>  wrote James Suckling after having received the diploma of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia from the representative of the Italian government in Hong Kong. Recognition much deserved for he who has promoted the knowledge of Italian wines all over the world and especially in Asia for thirty odd years. <<I Hope to be doing it for twenty more years with wines always better>> he said welcoming wine producers from all over Italy come to celebrate him. Among them were Antonio Rallo and Francesca Planeta from Sicily and Anna Abbona (Marchesi di Barolo) and Stefano Gagliardo from Piedmont, but the larger group was certainly from Montalcino, the land that maybe  Suckling loves most and the territory that more than any other he has contributed in promoting.

James Suckling magnum party

The MAGNUM PARTY took place at the Acquolina restaurant in Terranova Bracciolini, near Suckling’s Tuscan home. It has been the most choral and exclusive party of the Italian wine world, with a selection of wines worth of the host and with the possibility of tasting about 200 larger sized bottles of stellar quality. Tables among the olive trees, Australian DJ who came especially for the event and many very famous personalities from Italian wine.

Assistance for European Wine producers and international envy

700€ per hectare and 0,15€ per litre of wine, this is the assistance for European Wine producers that the rest of the world looks at with envy,without considering the off-set

Assistance-for-European-wine -producers-for-exportation

By Donatella Cinelli Colombini

It is well known that abroad the assistance for European wine producers and farmers is looked upon with suspect, as if they were a disturbance to competition but in a dishonest way. And wine is one of the products to be questioned.

A few years ago, to be able to export, all wineries were forced to send to China a declaration stating what contributions had received. It all ended when Europe accepted the commercialization of Chinese solar panels.

The last episode of this saga is the article “How Much Government Assistance Do European Wine Producers Receive?”published by the Journal of Wine Economics by Kym Anderson from the School of Economics in the Adelaide University and by Hans G. Jensen of the Institute of Food and Resource Economics from the Copenhagen University.

These two academics have estimated the European aids to be an average of 700€ per hectare and 0,15€ per litre of wine so roughly a nominal tax rate of about 20%of costs.

Assistance-for-European-wine-producers-for exporting-to Brazil

An enormous amount 2,341 billion per year, of which France alone gets about one third of the total (830 million Euro), Italy and Spain about a fifth each 570 the first and 405 the second) while all the other nations are under 100 million Euro.

If we go and see these total we realize that the vineyards with most contributions per hectare are the Austrian ones .They get 2.400 € so more than double everyone else. After this initial help the aid per hectolitre of wine is superior in Austria with respect to every other European nation: 370€. In this list we find  Slovakia in second position then Slovenia, Check republic, Portugal, France and Bulgaria all above the European  average of 145€, while we in Italy are below with 140€.