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Welcome to
VOLUME IV,
NUMBER 10 of Wine News, the e-Letter from the WineCountry.IT network. (Would you
rather see the e-Letter on your favorite browser? Use
this link. Usa il link seguente se vuoi leggere
le News in italiano).
We know all too well that when it comes to wine and specialty foods, writing about them may excite our fantasies, but there's no real satisfaction until all the senses are physically engaged. The eyes want to see the colors and evaluate the nuances, the nose wants to be stimulated by the scents, and the palate wants to savor the tastes.
That's why we are glad to announce the launch of a new online store featuring high quality, boutique, hard-to-find, small estate- produced Italian wines and olive oil.
Currently the store is set to serve US consumers only, however, the portfolio of wines and specialty products is bound to grow in number, and the store management is planning to extend its offers to other markets. In fact, the site is already structured to serve the Italian, European and other select world markets, once the red tape and organizational kinks have been resolved.
On another front, WineCountry.IT is getting ready for the sixth Italian Flavor Forum, scheduled for the November 21st. We have a superb lineup of new wines from various regions of Italy, including Campania. Marche, Emilia Romagna, Apulia, Umbria, Veneto, Tuscany and Piedmont. In addition, in November we are introducing a brand new, Italian-designed device for decanting wine, one glass at a time, without pouring it from the bottle. We'll elaborate further in the next e-Letter.
Despite the fact that September has been a fairly busy month, as you may gather from the above introduction, for our readers' satisfaction we have put together a selection of engaging articles. We hope that you'll find the following as interesting as we did.
Please, enjoy.
Loris Scagliarini,
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Articles
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Appointment with the Radicchio Rosso from Treviso |
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 From November 2006 to February 2007, celebrations and festivals will honor the "Edible Flower", as the locals call the Radicchio Rosso. The events take place in several municipalities within the production area of the Radicchio Rosso di Treviso (Red Radicchio from Treviso) and Radicchio Variegato di Castelfranco Veneto (Variegated Radicchio from Castelfranco Veneto). In all locations there will be colorful booths, banners, guided tastings of typical products, musical entertainment and open-air kitchens offering local specialties.
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Sagrantino Becomes a White Wine |
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 The original Sagrantino di Montefalco was first produced in the Middle Ages by the followers of Saint Francis of Assisi, as a wine intended for consumption during religious services.
"A new chapter in the history of Sagrantino is about to start," said Marco Caprai.
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Competition to Give Italian Wine a New Global Image |
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 The Unione Italiana Vini (UIV, or Italian Wine Union), an association founded in 1895 which includes the top names in the Italian wine industry, organized a competition among university students of architecture, design and art, as well as pupils of art academies and graphic schools.
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Robot Sommelier |
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 A 'robot sommelier', able to recognize hundreds of wines and cheeses, has been assembled and successfully tested by a team of Japanese researchers of the 'NEC Corporation' and the Mie University, in Japan.
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Grape Harvest 2006 in Champagne |
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 There is good reason to be optimistic at the beginning of the 2006 grape harvest in Champagne, however the vignerons prefer to hold back their enthusiasm until the grapes are off the vine, safe from possible last minute weather surprises. Should the weather cooperate, this year's production is expected to be abundant, totaling up to 13,000 kilos per hectare, that is, 11,600 pounds per acre, which will result in 360 million bottles of the noble bubbly hallmark
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Italian Tocai: The Final Harvest! |
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 The Azienda Fantinel honored the ItalianTocai DOC wine and enologist Tibor Gal with a singular event: "Calcio diVino – La Triestina al lavoro nel vigneto Fantinel", or "Divine Soccer – The Triestina Soccer Team Harvesting the Fantinel Vineyard".
The harvest that took place at the Fantinel model vineyard of Borgo Tesis, in Tauriano di Spilimbergo, in the province of Treviso was an exceptional one.
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State of Ripening of the Sangiovese Grape Varieties |
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 The progression of ripening of the Sangiovese grapes varieties has been monitored by the ARSIA (Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l'Innovazione nel settore Agro-forestale della Regione Toscana, or Regional Agency for the Development and Innovation of the Agricultural and Forestry Sector of the Tuscan Region) in various vineyards in the provinces of Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca and Grosseto. In general, the ripening process appears to be aligned with last year and the seasonal trend. The sugar level is growing.
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Italian Sparkling Wine Sales Boom in Japan and Spain |
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 Italian sparkling wine is gaining momentum and is becoming more and more appreciated overseas.
The main consumers of Italian bubbles are still the usual suspects, with Germany in the lead, followed by the US and Great Britain. The real surprise in 2006 came from the Far East, namely Japan, and from a fellow Mediterranean country in Europe: Spain.
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Engine Wine |
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Italians maintain a sacred relationship with wine. Giovanni Marani wants them to fill their gas tanks with it. The chief engineer of the Caviro Distillery in Faenza, Italy, Marani is giving me a tour of the facility, yelling over the din of backhoes, conveyors, grinders, mixers, and steam kettles. "Eccole!" he says, using the Italian word for voilà, and proudly gestures to a pungent four-story mountain of fermenting grape skins. This pile of compost, he insists, is a new kind of renewable resource that will power factories and automobiles throughout Europe. "This is not common knowledge to most Italians," he says. "But this mound could become an important fuel source for the future."
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Coldiretti Announces Record Wine Exports to US and China |
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 Worldwide exports of wine 'made in Italy' have shown a record growth of 7%, with the United States increasing imports 9%, thus becoming the main importer of Italian products. Another important success was registered in the emerging Chinese market, where imports more than doubled to a 115% increase over the same period last year.
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WineCountry.IT
Columns
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Italian Native Vines
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Let's follow Rosa D'Ancona as she discovers the seven Emilia Romagna native red vines and the four white vines, which include the Albana di Romagna, which was the very first Italian white wine to be assigned the the DOCG denomination.
In addition, Rosa points out nine outstanding regional producers.
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In this month of October 2006, as the new grape juice starts its transformational journey into wine, we are honoring the Azienda Agricola Frezza as Company of the Month. This estate, in addition to producing high quality wine, also produces its true specialty, the extra virgin olive oil Garda Orientale DOP.
The Azienda Agricola Frezza was founded in the 1950s by Dr. Gianfranco Frezza, and is located on the southeastern shores of Lake Garda, in the province of Verona. The estate fields expand across the three municipalities of Peschiera del Garda, Lazise and Castelnuovo del Garda.
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Here we are continuing our introduction of Italy's 155 Protected Designation of Origin (PDO, or, in Italian, DOP, Denominazione di Origine Protetta) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI, or IGP in Italian, Indicazione Geografica Protetta) products.
With this installment, we present the Asiago DOP cheese from the northeastern region of Veneto.
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