THE CASATO PRIME DONNE AWARD WINNERS 2023
THE PRIMA DONNA 2023 IS MARIA CANABAL, FOR JOURNALISM AWARED IRENE CHIARI AND ALESSANDRO REGOLI FROM WINENEWS, LOREDANA SOTTILE AND GIANLUCA ATZENI FROM TREBICCHIERI
In 2023 the Casato Prime Donne award chooses one of the characters who have worked the most in favour of gender equality in food & wine: Maria Canabal, founder and organizer of the Parabere Forum. Every year since 2015, the forum brings together, in a different place, 400 women from all over the world: cooks and scientists, engineers and farmers, anthropologists, wine producers and agronomists. Parabere is a non-profit association and is aimed at empowering through three ingredients: information, teaching and role models. Therefore, it tries to create a network that increases the opportunities for the female participants and raises their awareness. In 2015 Maria Canabal was recognized among the “Most Influential Women in Gastronomy” by the Foundation Woman’s Week and her cookbooks were awarded by the Gourmand Cookbooks Awards as “Best in the world”.
The jury of the Casato Prime Donne Award, chaired by Donatella Cinelli Colombini and composed of Rosy Bindi, Anselma Dell’Olio, Anna Pesenti, Stefania Rossini, Anna Scafuri and Daniela Viglione, together with the Mayor of Montalcino Silvio Franceschelli and the President of the Consorzio del Brunello Fabrizio Bindocci have chosen two of the major wine information portals as winners of journalistic awards for their contribution to promoting Montalcino and its wines.
Consorzio del Brunello Award on the theme “Brunello and the other wines of Montalcino” to Loredana Sottile and Gianluca Atzeni of the Gambero Rosso weekly business portal “Trebicchieri” for having carefully and professionally shared information and insights on the wine production of Montalcino.
Award on the theme “Me and Montalcino” to Alessandro Regoli and Irene Chiari of the “WineNews” portal for having disclosed, in a constant, timely, precise and exhaustive way, news on the Brunello di Montalcino area and its characters.
The Casato Prime Donne Award ceremony will take place in Montalcino in the Teatro degli Astrusi on Saturday 16 September at 10.30.
ince last year, the award also acts an incubator of youthful talents which, in the current edition, concerns 5 young people and two classes of the Montalcino high schools and, through the enhancement of their talent, aims to carry out an action of empowerment towards their peers encouraging them to believe in their own abilities and in the social value that comes from professional and human commitment.
MARIA CANABAL PRIMA DONNA 2023
Maria Canabal holds a Ph. D. in Law from the University of Toulouse (France) and a Master’s degree from the École du Louvre in Paris (France). She works as a journalist and contributes to world-famous media such as Le Nouvel Observateur, Vogue Casa , Gourmet, Monocle, Apicius, Netflix or ELLE, among others. She is the president of the Parabere Forum, the world’s first platform to empower women in gastronomy, agriculture and nutrition. She is a gender teacher at the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo (Italy). She was awarded “Most Influential Woman in Gastronomy” in 2015 by the Foundation Woman’s Week (Madrid, Spain) and her cookbooks were awarded by Gourmand Cookbooks Awards as “Best in the World”. Growing up in a multicultural and multilingual atmosphere, Canabal has lived on 5 continents and currently speaks 5 languages. A true bookworm, she loves Italy and above all Sardinia, she is passionate about wine with a predilection for Albariño, she likes scallops and art. She defines herself as a “full-time feminist”.
ALESSANDRO REGOLI AND IRENE CHIARI FROM WINENEWS
Winenews is a communication agency regarding the world of wine & food, online since May 1st 2000 and which, since 2009, has been distributing a daily electronic sheet. It was founded by Irene Chiari and Alessandro Regoli who is also its director and it reports the most interesting news on the world of wine & food, as well as comments, trends and curiosities, surveys, interviews and insights. Wine News has a worldwide diffusion, it is present in all the main social media and, alongside the texts, it also has a web-TV and a weekly newsletter with the tastings “I Vini di Winenews”. Examples of talent, tenacity and entrepreneurial courage, Irene Chiari and Alessandro Regoli enjoy a solid international reputation and have made a decisive contribution to the fame of Montalcino and Brunello
GIANLUCA ATZENI AND LOREDANA SOTTILE TREBICCHIERI GAMBERO ROSSO ECONOMY WEEKLY
Gambero Rosso is a leading platform for content, education, promotion and consultancy in the Italian wine, food and travel sector. Its weekly Trebicchieri is a spreadsheet with technical content, current news and above all economic insights of extraordinary level in terms of completeness and reliability. The two editors Loredana Sottile and Gianluca Atzeni, he is Sardinian and she is Sicilian, are an example of professionalism and competence with few equals in Italy in the evaluation and sharing of wine and economic contents. For years they have been writing about the events of Brunello di Montalcino with punctuality and intelligence.
THE CASATO PRIME DONNE AWARD
The 2023 edition of the Casato Prime Donne Award is dedicated to Francesca Colombini Cinelli who passed away on 30 December last. In 1981 the “Lady of Brunello” had founded the Barbi Colombini Award with the aim of promoting the fame of Montalcino and Brunello also through the involvement of great personalities of culture and journalism. In 1999 this initiative was transformed by giving greater emphasis to women in their path of affirmation in society and in the workplace. In its first 22 years of life, the Award has contributed to the fame of Montalcino by enhancing the best journalistic contributions, radio and television programmes and photographic shots concerning the territory and the Brunello wine.
The Award is part of a more complex project that includes the Casato Prime Donne winery, the first in Italy with an entirely female workforce, the Brunello Prime Donne chosen by a panel of 4 international tasters and the Prime Donne trail in the vineyards and in the Brunello winery. Along this itinerary there are the quotes by the winners flanked by art installations.
The “Prime Donne” winners
2022 Elena Testi – reporter
2019 Alessandra Paola Ghisleri – Pollster and political scientist
2018 Sara Gama – Footballer
2017 Federica Bertocchini – Molecular biologist
2016 Chaimaa Fatihi – Peace activist
2015 Giuseppina Maria Nicolini – Mayor Lampedusa and Linosa
2014 Sandra Savaglio – Astrophysicist
2013 Linda Laura Sabbadini – Director of the ISTAT Department of Social and Environmental Statistics
2012 Maria Carmela Lanzetta- Mayor of Monasterace
2011 Carla Fendi- Stylist and cultural patron
2010 Samantha Cristoforetti – Astronaut
2009 Ilaria Capua – Virologist
2008 Josefa Idem – Athlete
2007 Frances Mayes – Writer
2006 Volunteer workers of the Telefono Rosa Association
2005 Cabrinian Missionary Sisters
2004 Kerry Kennedy – Huma tights activist
2003 Carla Fracci – Leading ballerina
2002 Marta Morazzoni – Writer
2001 Paola Capriolo – Writer
2000 Francesca Sanvitale – Writer