LETTER FROM VERONA VIINITALY

It is 0559. The sun is still sleeping as I write this in the 14th Century Scaglieri Palace that has been my home for the past hectic week. It is now the Hotel Due Torri Baglioni where I met my friend Sophie Van Die Mutter the famous German violinist who was checking in yesterday afternoon.
I shall miss my friends in the Ristorante Al’Aquila like Luciano (aka ‘Pavorotti’) the waiter and his colleague Ali who I see every morning at breakfast before going to the Concorso Enologico Internazionale to judge the wines for Vinitaly.
What wines there were! Yesterday and Saturday were the best when we judged the top wines to decide which wines earn  the Grand Gold Medal, Gold Medal, Silver and Bronze. They were absolutely fabulous and only about 3% were second samples which means rejected wines due to cork and TCA (2,4,6 trichloroanisole) or other physical and biochemical faults. Out of over 3500 wines in the competition and only about 3% corked!!! To any rational person of sound intelligence. good, well treated cork for bottles of wine seem to be not such a terrible idea after all. Perhaps, that it why it has been used since the days of ancient Rome. So, persons who advocate screwcaps and other such high tech gadgets condemning good old cork, maybe…. just maybe you have got your figures somewhat incorrect, dare I say, in a completely inoffensive way of course. Ah, the politics of wine….when will it end?
Later I shall go to Trentino to taste some of the world’s best sparkling wines, usually maligned by champagne lovers who have never even tasted them. Trention wines like Cantine Ferrari are mad by the metodo classico knownin Champagne as the methode champenoise. These wines are unique to Italy and the top ones are in my opinion as The Travelling Gourmet, BETTER than some French champagnes!  As I like to say, in the world of food and wine, like all other things, think of parachutes ## THEY ONLY WORK WHEN THEY ARE Open!!! Salute! Buon Giornata! I am going jogging now to see the sunrise over Verona!
This is The Travelling Gourmet in the City of Romeo & Juliet > VERONA

About thetravellinggourmet

As a renowned Travel, Food & Wine Writer he has travelled the world in a keen & indomitable pursuit of exotic delicacies & fine wines. His articles have been published in over 20 prestigious publications, both local & international. Dr. Lim has toured and trained in Wine Evaluation & Oenology in most of the world's top wine producing areas from France to Australia. The Travelling Gourmet says, "Gastronomy has no frontier. These are the gastronomic voyages of The Travelling Gourmet. My unending mission. To explore strange new cuisines, to seek out new wines and new culinary experiences, to boldly go where no gourmet has gone before...." Have pen, will travel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information storage & retrieval system, without permission from Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet and/or MSN. Material may be works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents may be true but may also be products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance whatsoever to actual person or persons, either dead or living, events, or locales may be entirely and purely coincidental and unintentional. No part of this website may be used to villify others or for criminal purposes. Interests: Travel, Food, Wines, Cooking, Wine Appreciation, Parachuting, Languages, Music, Reading, Swimming, Hunting, Ballet, Fencing, Archery, Anthropology and more... The Travelling Gourmet is a copyrighted trademark. All rights and photos reserved. No part may be reproduced without permission.
This entry was posted in Food and drink. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s