VinItaly Day Four - Last Day!!!

Finally I have made it to the last day of VinItaly - I would have never thought I could see the end of it after the exhausted day one. Traffic is visibly less and I have no mode to pour crappy wine. I do a couple of short WSET master classes, barter a few bottles of wine for truffle, an Italian white and a Croatia white, then pack up and go home.

In the afternoon, I walk into town to enjoy the spring warmth. This time, I am walking the outskirt of the town along the river. Italian towns have not changed for thousands of years. I can imagine back in the Middle Ages, most traders / businesses would be resided in town where is protected by a river / moat, while farmers were living out of town doing the hard yards. I wonder into a beautiful tranquil renascence garden and have a good look of this beautiful town at the top of the garden.

The wine party starts when the evening comes. We all gather together at Peter Simic's hotel and starts off with Campari / Spiritz to wine down. We then progress to consume our left over wine of over a dozen among 8 of us. Dinner consists of dirty and even dirtier jokes. Well, we work hard and play hard!

Learnings:
I am given different wine everyday and they are not best. There are no tasting notes, information about the wineries, no price points, not even a business card! My suggestion to these tight budget wineries is: if you can't send someone to an overseas wine fair, don't bother sending wine and let someone else pour it for you. Save your money for the next wine show that you are serious about.

VinItaly is like a consumer event, loads of sommeliers, students, self proclaimed "wine lovers". They drink, don't spit, and move on. There is no discussion on price list, MOU, branding, etc. Most of them come here to buy Italian wine, for international wine, better off going to Provine in Düsseldorf / Bordeaux, Vinexpo HK. Or even worse, they are trying to sell us Italian wine. Daniela who runs a wine consortium offers me a thick wine list that covers most Italian regions and price points.Read more