Wine from Tuscany available in Harrods in London
From 23rd August until 3rd October in Harrods, the most famous department store in the world, where luxury goods from all commercial genres are to be found: fashion, accessories, latest designs and food, is promoting Tuscan wine from 30 leading wine manufacturers and among them are several wines from Donatella Cinelli Colombini
Violante at Ellis of Richmond's
As this was a very important event, Donatella jumped on a plane and went to London. This is a very rare event as she normally leaves the task of travelling abroad to her daughter Violante and to Luca Mittica. But this time she went in person to represent her wines.There were two full days of meetings. The first with the importers Ellis of Richmond, who have been in the wine market since 1822. This is a family business which is very successful as was demonstrated by their warehouse which is stocked with a million bottles of wine, the vast majority of which are premium quality wines.
The second day was spent in Harrods where she organized a wine tasting, this event was reserved for customers with high spending capacity. After two and a half hours 320 bottles of wine had been sold 30 of which were Donatella’s Brunello.
Twelve employees work in the wine department of this famous London store, they are all young and all highly competent. What is astonishing are their sales abilities. They assist customers in selecting the wines and inform them, with an excellent level of knowledge about the history and the diverse production techniques of all the wineries such as Stellembosh, Burgundy or Mendoza in Argentina. They know everything about everyone. Anyone who thinks of England as a country with poor winemaking expertise needs to think again. These sales people need to be highly competent as they are selling wines to customers who themselves have a huge specialist knowledge of wines. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she wouldn’t have believed it! Donatella and Violante gave a wine tasting of the Brunello and Doc Orcia ‘Leone Rosso’ to these young salespeople from Harrods, and the questions that they posed ranged from the different types of soil, to the various vines and the rootstocks which are used, in other words excellent questions which you would expect to receive from experienced wine salespeople who were eager to learn more.
One individual particularly stood out from the rest, Francesca Cioce, a Sicilian who has lived in Britain for 12 years
Donatella and Violante at Harrods in London
but who still passionately loves her mother country Italy and Italian wines. Within Harrods she is a very strong supporter of all the Italian producers. She is cheerful, positive, tireless individual who is full of energy, an altogether lovely person. She loves living in London but dreams of returning to her true home, Sicily. She is, as Dante himself was before her, a strong supporter of the Banfi wines, Dante also enjoyed tasting this wonderful wine on British soil many years ago. The real splendour of the London streets will be even further enhanced next year when it will host the next Olympic games.