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Storyteller

ProWein 2015

posted on 20 March 2015
Here I am back from Prowein, and this year simply confirms my opinion from the first year I participated, that it’s a thoroughly professional event, and very useful to wine professionals. Yes, there’s a lot of activity in the halls, but it’s quite calm and serious, and one doesn’t get over-tired. Here are some pix of Merum’s stand, with Andreas, who is not only a great connoisseur of native-grape wine and fine olive oils, but a good friend especially! Merum’s space was host to some 20 producers from various Italian regions, each with its own distinctive grape variety. This year, I was the “Queen of Groppello,” as Andreas humorously calls me. Right near to us was Simone Maiolini with his great Franciacorta, which points up another terrific advantage of these wine fairs: they make possible not only new business contacts, but new relationships as well with other producers, better knowledge of other aspects of wine, and other growing areas, and much good humour and exchanges of bon mots–even more than I can handle! See you next at Vinitaly, quite a different event altogether, very different…

Viaggio in Sicilia

posted on 6 January 2016
Sono particolarmente legato a questa splendida regione per il ricordo di alcune entusiasmanti esperienze lavorative e non solo, che mi avevano portato là a fine anni Novanta e mi avevano fatto conoscere una Sicilia per me allora sorprendente e sconosciuta. Così, con rinnovato entusiasmo ho colto al volo l’invito di un amico-fornitore ad accompagnarlo per un breve viaggio di lavoro/piacere nella parte orientale dell’isola.

Groppello 2015

posted on 22 October 2015
In exercising my profession, I’ve been “treading the vineyards” for a good thirty years now, more or less, and I never expected to find such utterly fantastic Groppello! Totally unexpected, because Groppello, planted over hardly more than 400 hectares, exclusively on the Brescian side of Lago di Garda, is a challenging grape to grow. Its tight-packed cluster of “knotted-up” (groppello) berries; thin skin, with often little pigment; its hard-to-achieve balance of sugar and acidity—all these mean that even in good growing years the grapes struggle to ripen adequately, and suffer attacks of mould well before the harvest arrives.

Una giornata di imbottigliamento a Cantrina

posted on 15 July 2015
Giornata lunga, caldissima e impegnativa: abbiamo, infatti, messo in bottiglia e confezionato più di 17.000 bottiglie – un record per la nostra piccola azienda – tra vini di nostra produzione e quelli in conto lavorazione per altre aziende. L’imbottigliamento è l’ultima fase del processo di produzione di un vino ed è un momento molto delicato, nel quale nulla deve essere lasciato al caso, poiché si rischierebbe di vanificare mesi (e a volte anni) di attesa e lavoro per una semplice mancanza o disattenzione.
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