Wine News - June 01, 2006

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Following the 2005 success, this year the young winemaker, Maurizio Favrel, who manages the Malibrán family-run estate, presented two wines to the 67th annual Wine of the World Competition: the new Ruio, Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOC Brut 2005 and Gorio, Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOC Spumante Extra Dry 2005, garnering yet another great honor with both entries.
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VitignoItalia (Vineyard Italy), the trade show dedicated to Italian wines made with grapes from native vines, wrapped up the 2006 annual event with positive numbers and grand prospects for next year. 15,000 visitors, 81 foreign buyers from 20 countries, and about 5,000 Italian wine and food professionals participated in the three-day event.
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Senate speaker Franco Marini and Ermete Realacci, honorary president of Legambiente and president of the Committee 'Voler bene all'Italia' (Loving Italy) were the first to sign the petition for the protection of DOC wines traditionally aged in barriques.
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Numerous appointments at the 4^th Sapori diVini annual, which include art exhibition and entertainment, as well as wine tasting guided by ONAV's professional tasters and the Laboratorio del Gusto (Taste laboratory,) with Slow Food and the Association of Italian Sommeliers, plus the final market exhibition of typical food products and Piedmont's DOC and DOCG wines.
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'I Magnifici 12', that is, the 12 best wines produced from Italian native vines presented at the show, were selected among all the participants, awarding the 12 top products from different grape varieties, as judged by the professional tasters and sommeliers of the AIS (Italian Association of Sommeliers.)

'Il Vino Perfetto' (The Perfect Wine), chosen among the best wines from Italian native vines by 50 amateur tasters, was the Mille e Una Notte 2003 by Donnafugata for the 'Red Wine Category', and the Fiano di Avellino DOCG Terre di Dora by Terredora, for the 'White Wine Category'.
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The second annual BianchIrpinia, the Terra Mia (My Land) event-within-an-event held from May 12 to May 15 ended successfully.

Inserted in the Terra Mia program in order to offer the trade press a technical and qualified space for tasting and reflection, BianchIrpinia is the creation of the Terra Mia association in collaboration with the Consorzio di Tutela dei Vini d'Irpinia (Consortium for the Protection of the Wines from Irpinia), and  supported by the Campania Bank. This is the first event, and so far the only one, dedicated to the two best known white DOC wines produced in the Avellino province, the Greco di Tufo and Fiano di Avellino.
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ISRAWINEEXPO 2006, the first International Wine Exhibition in Israel, will take place from June 13, to 15, 2006 in Tel Aviv.

Following the international trend, wine consumption in Israel is up and its wine industry is flourishing. This is the perfect opportunity to experience the quality an variety of Israel's wines first hand.
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Wine labels used to be simple.

They were designed to tell you what was in the bottle, though, admittedly, it sometimes seemed as though German and French labels were created to obscure that information and require buyers to become experts before they could even tell what they were buying.

Some labels are quite strange, none more than those from Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon Winery. They include bad puns (My Favorite Marsanne, Originally Zin), strange drawings by artist Ralph Steadman (Cardinal Zin features a freakish church official; Domaine des Blagueurs, jokers), and marketing ploys from Bizarroworld: Big House Red’s label features a drawing of Soledad prison; Le Cigare Volant is named for the French version of a flying saucer, and there’s Le Pousseur (The Pusher) and Il Fiasco

Animals, mostly those perceived as noble, have long graced serious wine labels. Eagles and other birds, deer, foxes and members of the cat, dog and horse families are especially popular, including the quail of Covey Run, the crows of Croze and ravens of Ravenswood.

There’s JackaRoo, Four Emus, Crocodile Rock and The Little Penguin from Australia, and Fat Cat and Monkey Bay from New Zealand (a land that has no monkeys). American companies, too, have their share of creatures, including Papio with its own monkeys, Three Blind Moose, King Fish and HMS Rex Goliath, which was named after a 47-pound sideshow rooster.

"Women consume 60 percent of wine," observes MacNeil, though, she notes, "Women have bought most of the wine for decades—just not expensive wine." Women are said to be more attracted to packages than to numeric scores, and that may have led to some labels, like the venerable flowered Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais, and the Perrier-Jouët Champagne bottles, as well as brands like Beringer’s White Lie and Mad Housewife, to be aimed specifically at women.

"Dead celebrities," particularly labels starring Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, is another category marketers are exploring. Marilyn Merlot wine started out as a whim, but has evolved into one of the most collectible of wines; prices for multi-year collections approach those of fine Bordeaux and Burgundies. It is actually excellent Napa Valley wine, perhaps a shame since no one ever pulls its cork.
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MiWine, the professional exhibition of quality wine and spirits, is preparing for its second event, which will be held in the Portello Halls of the Fiera Milano (Milan Trade Show Center), from June 12, to 14, 2006.

Organized by Fiera Milano SpA in collaboration with Unione Italiana Vini (UIV, or Italian Wine Union), MiWine is dedicated exclusively to trade professionals. Though it is deeply rooted in the quality wine-making tradition of Italy, MiWine has a strong international slant.
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Around fifty students from seven European universities were invited to the competition called the FOSS Challenge. They competed against each other to develop a calibration for a FOSS WineScan Flex analyzer so that it could be used to decide the price of wine.
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Not later than April 25th, based on data issued by the Italian Food & Wine Institute, we reported that Australia had taken the lead over Italy, and today, based on on data issued by the same Italian Food & Wine Institute for the first two months of 2006, we are happy to report that Italian wines have surpassed Australian wines once again, thus recovering the leadership on the US market.
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Notwithstanding the progress made by the local wine industry in January 2006, US consumers have been drinking more foreign wines, spending 10.1 percent more in imported labels compared to the previous year.

According to a recent research – reports Coldiretti – in the United States the market of imitation wines is almost on a par with those imported from Italy. In other words, one every two bottles of 'Italian' wine sold in the States is a fake.
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In Montefalco, in in the Umbria region, the wineries will be open every Sunday until October, not just on May 27, and 28, Italian national Cantine Aperte (Open Wineries) days. Each Sunday, participating eno-tourists will have the opportunity to partake of 'Meals in the Vineyards' and 'Flavor Hikes', carried around in special busses and directed by the Strada del Sagrantino (Sagrantino Wine Road) professional guides.
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On May 6, the DOC Frascati celebrated its 40th anniversary in Rome.

In 1966, the first few Italian wines were awarded the DOC appellation. One of those 'pioneers' there was a wine which had been known and appreciated for centuries and was usually considered, even abroad, the symbol of Frascati itself, or the area where it comes from and takes its name.
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The Italian wine production for the period 2005/2006 is around 52.6 million hectoliters (around 1,390 gallons) reveals the report entitled 'La forza della viticoltura europea nel mercato globale del vino di qualità', or 'The Strength of the European Viticulture in the Global market of Quality Wines', presented by Grandi Marchi.
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Russia is one of the emerging markets for Italian wine consumption, registering a yearly import increase of 50.7 percent.

This is the outcome of a survey by Coldiretti about the market destination for Italian wines in 2005. The result was revealed by Coldiretti during April's 40th Vinitaly, in Verona, Italy.
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In Roman times, the 'Vino Piceno' (Wine from the Piceno area) was well known throughout the empire and the white Verdicchio wine was already fairly appreciated.
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• Introduction

The estate includes a cattle breeding business specialized in Piedmontse cows and excellent viticultural parcels of land. The vitivinicultural part of the business was started because of the great passion for vine growing and winemaking that runs in the Gagliardi family. The winemaking business started with just one small Nebbiolo d'Alba vineyard, but grew in time to the current five hectares (around 12.45 acres) of vineyards.
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