CASATO PRIME DONNE AWARD POSTPONED
DUE TO THE SERIOUS HEALTH CONDITIONS OF CARLO GARDINI, DONATELLA CINELLI COLOMBINI’S HUSBAND, IT HAS BEEN DECIDED TO POSTPONE THE CASATO PRIME DONNE AWARD
by Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Francesca Colombini e Donatella Cinelli Colombini al Premio Casato Prime Donne 2016
The 2023 edition of the Casato Prime Donne Award, scheduled for September 16TH , was dedicated to Francesca Colombini Cinelli, whom I would like to remember here with you.
The initiative was born with the name Premio Barbi Colombini thanks to my mother, in 1981, to bring the interest of the press on Montalcino and Brunello, but also to create new contacts, in the belief that the relationship with great cultural personalities would open minds and would stimulate new energy in the whole territory.
Over the years it has given a boost to the growth of Montalcino and, in 1999, the Award was transformed into a promoter of female talent, and since last year it has added to its previous activity that of incubator of young talents.
FRANCESCA COLOMBINI CINELLI
Premio Casato prime Donne .Franesca Cinelli Colombini con Violante e Donatella
My mother Francesca was involved in the award activity until the years of the pandemic, when her health began to falter. However, her main activity was entrepreneurial, first alongside her father Giovanni Colombini and, since 1976, alone. A woman in an almost exclusively male world of wine in which she was well aware of being an exception, as she explains in an article in the “Corriere vinicolo” in 1988 <<the situation of women is less bright in the world of wine or at least in that part of it where the leading companies, in terms of quantity and quality, are located>>. But she immediately emphasized the greater profitability of farms led by women, which, already at that time, was relevant and which she proudly attributed to the <<female character which is more practical, concrete and tenacious>>.
A pioneering role in Montalcino and in the wine world that was unanimously recognized and, upon her death, sparked a sense of condolence that submerged my brother Stefano and me with affectionate messages that deeply touched us.
I would like to conclude this memory with the sentence that finishes her book “Il vino fa le gambe belle”. (Wine makes beautiful legs). <<The people of the
Premio Internazionale Casato Prime Donne 2019
countryside today are largely a new, cultured, elegant, refined population. Grape growers, olive growers, writers, musicians, farmers, breeders, painters, sculptors, actors, politicians, artists, professionals of every discipline are all the “peasants” of the third millennium. They represent the confirmation, with their presence and their lifestyle, that “peasants” are born so.
The “peasant spirit” of the soul is the exaltation of the most important and noble feelings together with the desire for freedom lived close to naturally perfect things such as the earth and trees>>