Wine News - January 02, 2010 |
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Welcome to
VOLUME VIII,
NUMBER 1 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).
Italian Flavor Forum XII
May, 2010
Museo ItaloAmericano,
San Francisco, California.
Italian wine and food tasting dedicated to professional wine and food buyers and the press.
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The dreadful 2009 has finally checked out, and hopefully, with it the worst of the worldwide economic crisis.
At WineCountry.IT, L.L.C., we struggled, like most other businesses did, in order to survive these times of extremely lean cows and are now ready to face a new year. Our resolution for 2010 is to revamp our efforts in promoting quality Italian wine and food, with collaborations and partnerships, that in turn generate new initiatives and long-term programs.
Of course, we will continue our dedication to inform by continuing to publish consistently focused articles about Italian wine and gourmet food from Italy as well as from around the world.
We open the new year with, among others, an article about the fall of earnings in agricultural in Europe in 2009, and another about the new legal troubles faced by some Italian Wines. There are a couple of articles featuring two very different books: Melanie Joy's 'Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows', and Antonio Di Lorenzo's 'Perché ci chiamano Vicentini magnagati' ('Why Do They Call Us Cat Eaters From Vicenza'.)
Happy New Year and enjoy the reading,
Loris Scagliarini, WineCountry.IT President |
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Articles |
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UE: Agricultural Earnings Fell in 2009 |
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 With a 25.3% decline in earnings over 2008, Italy is second only to Hungary, which registered 35.6% drop, in income decrease for European Union agricultural workers and entrepreneurs. The overall drop in earnings for the EU27 States is 12.2%, while for the EU15 states the decline totaled 11.5%.
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Books: 'Perché ci chiamano Vicentini magnagati' |
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 A new book by Antonio Di Lorenzo entitled 'Perché ci chiamano Vicentini magnagati' ('Why Do They Call Us Cat Eaters From Vicenza'), published by Terra Ferma, hit the Italian bookshelves in time for the holidays. The book cover, designed by Vicenza artist Galliano Rosset, features a cat, obviously orange and white in color (as most cats from Vicenza appear to be), on top of the column in Piazza dei Signori (Square of the Nobles), in place of the Leone di San Marco (St.Mark's Lion) which graces the real thing.
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Books: 'Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows' |
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 In her groundbreaking new book, 'Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows', Melanie Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism. Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms.
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New Year's Eve: Italian Toast Are TRENTODOC |
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 The TRENTODOC metodo classico (the 'classic method' used to produce Italian sparkling wines) was featured in Italian TV's year end celebrations. In fact, thanks to an initiative of the Italian Agriculture Ministry, all national public and private television networks welcomed 2010 with Italian made sparklers.
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| Fourth Vinitaly India 2010 |
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 In addition to presenting Italian quality wines from various regions of the Italian peninsula, including Lombardy, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Tuscany, and Sardinia, among others, for the first time, this year Vinitaly India 2010 will introduce quality olive oil produced by estate members of the Consorzio Olivicolo Italiano (UNAPROL, or Consortium of Italian Olive Oil Producers), as well.
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The World's Largest Beverage Competition: The 2009-2010 Results Are In |
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 This year's winners hail from more than thirty countries from all parts of the globe, including Argentina, Australia, Belize, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Korea, Laos, Latvia, Martinique, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Polynesia, Puerto Rico, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.
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More Legal Trouble for Some Italian Wines |
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 According to articles published by the Siena edition of the daily newspaper La Nazione (The Nation) and the Florence issue of the daily Corriere della Sera (The Evening Courier), 17 people and 42 companies are currently under investigation for falsifying public documents with the intent to commit fraud.
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| Più Gusto 2009 Sideways – Part 1 |
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 An uneventful, thus good, KLM flight took me from San Francisco, California to Bologna, Italy, via Amsterdam, Netherlands, on my way to the Più Gusto, Salone Internazionale del Gusto (literally, though it does not truly express the Italian meaning, More Flavor, International Flavor Salon) wine and food trade show, which would take place from the 5th to the 8th of December, 2009 in Lugano, Switzerland a smooth, clean, elegant, and efficient city on the shores of the lake of the same name.
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 At 10:30 the complimentary hotel shuttle takes the group of international buyers coming from England, Israel, India and, of course, other parts of Switzerland, hosted like us at the Swiss Diamond, to the Centro Esposizioni near downtown Lugano, where at 11am the one-on-one meetings with wine and food producers which, in our case, are exclusively Italian, start again.
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| Part 3 |
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 After checking with the concierge, who apologetically advises me to use the computer in the business and Internet center on the ground floor, I hop into the shower, get ready, then head to the media center where I find John Parmegiani who tells me that the Internet is not available there either, so, after having reported the problem to the reception desk we head for breakfast.
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 Today is an Italian Catholic holiday, the Immacolata Concezione (Immaculate Conception), and, as is usual on Sundays and holidays, the family gathers at my sister Luisa's home for lunch. I spend the rest of the day with good friends, catching up and getting up-to-date on the news since we last met back in April, when I was here for the 43rd Vinitaly.
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 My old friend Alberto Zannoni, whom I have not seen in 15 years, drives from Padua some 140 odd kilometers (over 88 miles) to Castelfranco Emilia to bring me a couple of bottles of Prosecco wines which he picked up for me a few days earlier in Valdobbiadene. He arrives soon after 10 am, and about a half an hour later we are joined by Fabio Rota, the wine producing architect owner of Azienda Agricola Girolda in Reggio Emilia, who brings a selection of his wines, including a Lambrusco millesimato and two 100% Lancellotta grape wines, a regular and a Riserva version.
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Part 6 |
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 The flights to Amsterdam and from there to San Francisco are smooth and uneventful. We land at SFO at 10 minutes pat 1PM, and by 3 I am home, welcomed by Teo the cat alone, as Brigit is still at school, at San Rafael's Dominican University, where she teaches English as a second language for the ELS Language School.
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This month we present a pod from the Veneto, more precisely, from the valleys surrounding the town of Belluno: the Fagiolo di Lamon della Vallata Bellunese IGP (Bean from Lamon in the Belluno Valley).
After initial difficulties in being accepted when humanist scholar Pierio Valeriano, brought it to his native Belluno, after he received a small amount of it from Popoe Clement VII, this product later played a very important part in the local economy. After WWII, the Fagiolo di Lamon della Vallata Bellunese IGP established itself in both the national and international markets.
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