Spring is in full bloom and it is time for an anticipated Vinitaly 2012. What better opportunity to meet with industry leaders and trend setters to “define” the top trends for Italian Wine in 2012. Here is the summary of our interviews:
Trend # 1 - Social Media: Without a doubt, this is the biggest digital trend in Italian wine this year. Italian producers, large and small, are all diving into Social Media (especially Facebook & Twitter). The great thing about this trend is that it is often the small producers with a great story to tell that are really emerging and leading the market. Keep on posting! (more...)
Honey is surprisingly like wine, and like wine, honey’s flavor is a reflection of the plants where the pollen originated. Bees don’t directly pollinate the vines in the vineyard, but they do pollinate just about everything else around. Keeping the ecosystem in tip top shape takes a little help from our friends — birds, bats and bees.
But there is trouble in the world of beekeeping. A new documentary produced by Dogwoof on the vanishing of the bees in the UK.
“Imagine half a million adults skipping town and leaving their children behind. Picture an opened suitcase filled with bundles of cash at a bus stop and yet no robber wants to snatch it. The apiary science mystery known as Colony Collapse Disorder displays these very symptoms. Not only do the bees abandon their hive, but the queen and the brood as well. Unnatural. Unheard of. Even the predators that usually raid the hive for honey stay far away. At first, this occurrence sounds like an urban legend or an exaggerated tale. Except its not. The situation is both dire and all too real. Bees are disappearing all over the planet and no one knows why.”
More buzz to come…
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.. a truism that has falsely been attributed to Albert Einstein. Who cares! If it get’s the world’s attention, let’s name drop. Einstein was smart enough, and logical enough, that he could have said it, right?
“… the bee . . . gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own,” said another great thinker, Leonardo da Vinci. Now that one is correctly attributed.
What has really been the buzz of late is the EU Parliament’s approved of the resolution on “Health of the bees and beekeeping challenges“, which among other things, calls on the Commission to allocate more resources to research and to support the health of a European network of “hives” in order to monitor the effects of environmental conditions, beekeeping and agriculture on bees.
Could it have to do with the fact that the “work” of pollination is vital to crops in Italy, and those crops are worth 1.5 billion euros a year… 14.2 billion in Europe. “Approximately 84% of plant species and 76% of food production in Europe depends on pollination by bees,” says the EU Parliament report.
So bees, their role as environmental guardians has expanded to the “protection” of Europe.
Bees have been our partners for ages.
Understatement – Bees are neat little creatures. The truth? Bees rule!
While scientists investigate whether bees can enhance the quality of grapes and help produce better wine, the fact remains that bees are fundamental to the environment. Their efforts are debatably as strenuous and laborious as any vineyard worker’s and economically, their pollination-contribution to food crops in Italy is worth around 1.5 billion euros a year. In Europe, about 14.2 billion.
Honey bees are a super-organism — each one working for the health of the whole colony and giving back to the environment every grain of what they take.
Though bees often get the cold shoulder when it comes to the environment considerations, finally they are getting some merited attention.
Its all the buzz..
Keep your eyes peeled for a deeper look at the bee…harvest stories right here. “According to a study at Ohio State University a honeybee will drink the equivalent of a human drinking ten liters at one sitting.” On bees and buzz, next week.
posted by Kate Carlisle
He made it…the swearing chef with a multi-million euro empire has appeared in Tuscany.
Smack dab in the heart of the bell’Paese, in a territory that is considered classic to some, clichè to others, his latest Ouija board from where he is hoping to divine ever-more success is 23 kilometers from Siena. Right next door to the sprawling Fèlsina vineyards that straddle Chianti Classico and the Crete Senesi.
Gordon Ramsay may have a reputation for shouting and berating, but when it comes to his latest undertaking, La Contrada restaurant in the 5-star town-turned resort, Castel Monastero, he grins and says “wow” with enthusiasm rarely seen on his tv reality shows.
The day I spoke with him for ANSA news agency in Tuscany (Oct 14th), he had just toasted the 12th consecutive year of 3 Michelin stars for his eponymous restaurant in London. He gave a masterclass to a room full of journalists, first demonstrating, then letting us prepare a tiramisu. Yours truly, by the way, won. Well, if you don’t count the 8-year old who got the prize by default pigtail waving. She was cute, but I followed Chef Ramsay to the “t”.
As personable as anyone could wish for, Ramsay was a fun interview and even a more entertaining teacher. Which is something, by the way, that he would like to do in the future. Teach and write, as well as…. ”I’d like to buy a vineyard and produce 700-800 bottles of the best wine possible. And then I’d like to make cheeses”.
Chef Ramsay, here’s to you. I can’t wait to taste your wines…I’ll bring the tiramisu.
Marco Polo knew the way
With the cold temperatures tip-toeing in late, this year has been one of the longest Indian summers in living memory of Italian wine producers. Now the highly anticipated sweater weather promises to rectify at least some of the problems caused by excesses of record heat.
Creating a better-than-expected finale to this year’s harvest, the drop in temperature and rainfall are helping to nudge along climate-assisted polyphenols, and thus tannins responsible for the taste, color and astringency in red wines. Good luck for those who have a late harvest slated like Nebbiolo – the parent grape of Barolo and Barbaresco.
Says the Wine News Report, … “there are some points of excellence and a raise in alcoholic strength is foreseen. If it’s true that the bad weather caused the harvest of the early grapes, a providential rain in the next days could improve the situation of the tardy grapes.”
Prosecco, the sparkling darling of northern Italy, is a summer favorite and regional calling card. But the sipping season doesn’t stop when the days start to shorten. Prosecco is a way of life….
When Mestre-born Lucia and her foreign-correspondent husband Christopher made the move from north to south, their packing list included cases of prosecco. “Every time my family comes to see us in Rome, they drive the 6 hours down….that way we can refill our cantina.” (more…)
The very same year that England defeated Germany to win the 1966 World Cup Final was the year that Italian wine producers won their own battle of recognition. In a bold move to follow in France’s footsteps and to guarantee the quality and character of its wines, the first DOC wine was named…Tuscany’s Vernaccia di San Gimignano.
A system that maps out and limits production zones, vine varieties, alcohol levels, yields, ageing, etc. was approved in 1963…it took 3 years to name the first recipient. Appellations (Denominazioni) are given one of four classifications by the government.
These four classifications are: (more…)
Imagining Italy, one tends to drift into warm thoughts or sun-baked islands, beaches and Mediterrenean waters. It’s a stereotype that sings true of many parts of the peninsula, but leaves out other very different realities.
Trentino – Alto Adige or Südtirol (South Tyrol), immortalized by Goethe with his poem the Wanderer’s night-song, is the verdant face of Italy. The region consists of two administrative provinces, Trento and Bolzano and is split linguistally and culturally between Germanic and Italian influences. Trentino remains the most Italian, while Südtirol is heavily influenced by Germanic culture. (more…)
Fifty hectares of Sicilian terroir have won a total of 11 medals at the world’s most heralded international wine competitions, including the Decanter World Wine Awards, International Wine & Spirit Competition and the International Wine Challenge.
Baglio del Cristo, the Sicilian estate that encompasses as many as 10 micro-climates in its 50 hectares, has magically brought together the essence of this sun-kissed island and bottled their love for the land. The estate’s terrain of limestone and chalk is spread across the hills ranging from 230 to 270 metres above sea-level and just 8 kilometers from the sparkling Mediterranean sea. (more…)
Websolute
