Almost over: Vinitaly 2008

Back to the madness in the morning for a short meeting. Then to an airport hotel at Venice to sack out before the flight to New York.

So tired tonight we can't leave the B and B to go get dinner.

Tonight's menu:

Airline cookies and a clean, delicious Puglian Malvasia. Oh and a banana left over from breakfast and a sleeping pill. Isn't that how Marilyn died?

I'll take my chances.

Damn, I had a couple of things I really wanted to tell you. What were they?

Oh! Right! Jeff and I went to the Albino Armani dinner at the main cantina and tasting hall in Dolce', right by the border with Trentino. Jeff met Egle and was, of course, knocked out by her beauty and utterly charming personality. How could you not be?

This was also his introduction to Armani wines, which bowled him over with theit verve and typicity...at very honest prices, as they say here.

Jeff later took the tour of the cantina, led by the Armani marketing director Giampiero Sappa. Jeff was impressed by Giampiero's knowledge and by the superclean, advanced technology providing excellent quality control. Armani makes over 400,000 bottles of wine yearly but has not succumbed to an industrial approach.

At dinner we met two guys with interesting perspectives on the German and Eastern European wine markets. One, Raffaele Giordano, worked for Cavit for many years. He works for Armani in Germany and also has all of "Iron Curtain" Europe as his territory. He told us that Armani's Foja Tonda is doing very well: it was the first Armani wine he really pushed because it is an unusual red from an almost lost grape. Albino "rescued" and developed it. Foja Tonda is their most distinctive product and a perfect lead-in to other Armani offerings. As I've written before, they are all charactised by a clean, well-balanced attack on the palate, full of typical fruit, for the most part enhanced by the absence -- or light touch -- of oak. And all are fairly priced, very many in the $15 range retail.

Another dinner companion, a wine importer from Munich named Milanko, pointed out just how important Germany is to Italian producers. Currently, 70% of all wine consumed in Germany is from Italy. Domestic production isn't big enough to meet demand. Nor is the predominantly white wine produced there right to satisfy the German desire for red wines.

Nob surprisingly, this huge success on the vino front has paralleled a similar triumph of Italain food throughout Germany. I'll bet the trend operates in Poland, which smitten with all things Italian. You know, they're Catholics who know how to enjoy life down there in the olive groves.

Don't we all love Italy for those anachronistic arcadian visions?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Comments

[Lisa Qiu]

Very interesting, Polish food goes really well with a strong Sicilian wine.

Well, by the time I had that combo I already drank two chocolate martinis...

[David J]

...&, Terry, when you get back-- you can just chill with the competitive blogging thing, ok?
Check this out:
'Blogging Can Kill You', a corrective perspective...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8389&tag=nl.e550

[michele colline]

Foja Tonda è un altro nome per petite verdot?

[Lizzy]

@Michele: absolutely not! Foja Tonda è il nome che i contadini della Valdadige danno ad un'uva autoctona chiamata "casetta".

@Terry: non sapevo che eri a cena da Albino. Io ero ad un'altra cena aziendale,non posso dirti dove, ma ti dico che è stata una pessima idea! noia mortale, cibo mediocre e vini discutibili(e l'azienda è molto famosa...). Sono contenta che vi siate trovati bene, e che a Ken sia piaciuta l'azienda (e le persone!).
Una promessa: il prossimo anno dirò "no" a queste cene di rappresentanza, e accetterò solo gli inviti degli amici!
;-)

Lizzy

[TH]

Lizzy, bacione, cara! Saremo nella zona verso la fine d'aprile. Spero di vederti allora!

[michele colline]

La ringrazio la risposta..a toscana c'e un'uva si è chiamata foglia tonda, credo. Ho letto una rivista italiana di vino e loro hanno scritto che quest'uva è petit verdot. Chi sa? Tant'uve....tanti nomi..alla prossima.