Inaugural ICCS Wine Course 2010
By Dr. Michael Lim The Travelling Gourmet
Official ICCS Journalist
MEETING dynamic Raffaella Orsini, Secretary General of ICCS (Italian Chamber of Commerce in Singapore) and bubbly Erica Marcellan, Project & Business Development Manager in March 2010 to plan the Inaugural ICCS Wine Course was very exciting.
Soon after, the Wine Course was launched on 28 April, 2010 at a special event kindly graced by HE Anacleto Felicani, Ambassador of Italy to Singapore. The distinguished Ambassador said with a happy smile, “It’s always a pleasant occasion to talk about pleasure…to have this course to teach how to appreciate Italian wines. There’s a lot of room for Italian wines in Singapore.”
President of ICCS, Andrea Bonardi commented, “In Asia, markets are driven by brands, very brand oriented. The course we are offering, thanks to the support of Italian ristoranti and wine importers aims to share the beauty of Italian wines with Singaporeans!”
To start proceedings, I performed the Sciabolare with a bottle of effervescent Prosecco di Valdobbaidene.
Mi buon amico, Giovanni Oliva of the Grandi Vini d’Italia group then gave the first lesson in the course about Italy and its 20 wine regions, as well as the Vino da Tavola, IGT, DOC and DOCG classifications.
Over the next six months, all the major regions of Italy were covered in the course with a tasting of the wines of the different regions in each of the 9 lessons. In total over 56 different wines were tasted!
From the north to the south of Italy, wines from the Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige, Piemonte, Toscana, Abruzzo, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, Sardegna & Sicilia were explained and tasted. The courses were conducted by charming Francesca Rosani, Dane Knight and Giacomo Galtarossa at various venues including Ristorante Bologna, Capricci and Pasta Brava.
There were a total of 34 cosmopolitan participants with 14 from Singapore, 6 from Italy, 1 from India, 1 from Sri Lanka, 1 from Venezuela, 1 from Japan, 3 from Germany, 2 from USA, 1 from Sweden and 2 from France!
Two wines impressed me during the course:
Cerretto 2004 Barolo Zonchera from Piemonte
& Masseria Altemura Negroamaro 2008 Salento IGT.
On 3rd September in Ristorante Bologna with a special menu by my friend Chef Carlo Marengoni, Certificates were presented to the participants with much merriment and joie de vivre!
The Wine Course for 2011 is already in the pipeline…with a tour to Italy at the end of the course to see the vineyards, wineries, citte d’arte (cities of art and culture) and taste the food! Per favore keep a look out for details.
La mia passione, sono i vini italiani! Salute!
(My passion is for Italian wines)
The Travelling Gourmet 