A new year

With 2018, DoctorWine enters its seventh year of existence.

I would first of all like to thank all our collaborators and most of all the many people who have supported us by reading and sharing our articles on their sites. We are constantly expanding after starting, or in my case starting again, from zero and this is very encouraging.

If we wanted today to turn out a paper version of our site it would not be a problem for us. The quality of our content is evident and recognized by almost everyone. With the amount of copy we produce it would be child’s play to fill up 100 pages or more. The problem with turning out a paper magazine is related to its distribution, something near impossible for one of our size. Thus it is best we stay ‘on line’ and for free rather than try and tackle a sector we cannot control in the proper way. The lesson of Socrates of “know thyself” must remain one of the fundamental guidelines of our work, as well as that of remaining a free and, if possible, authoritative voice in our sector. For sure it would be nice to tackle new challenges. I, personally would like to focus more and food and restaurants.

Better yet ‘trattorias’, in line with the opinion of Gualtiero Marchesi who maintained that one needs to first learn that reality before attempting the so-called ‘haut cuisine’. And I share the view of my old, dear and unfortunately late friend Stefano Bonilli, with whom I shared many things and experiences for many years, that perhaps the era of super-extensive restaurants is drawing to a close. And there will now be an intelligent return to authentic, traditional cooking, one that is innovative and reasonable, based on local prime ingredients, local wines and even on the stories, places and people who are trying to interpret their origins. All this without going overboard and terrorizing clients with exotic dishes and sky-high checks. Italy cannot allow this to happen or it will risk seeing ‘star’ restaurants frequented only by the rich who view them more as status symbols without understanding anything about the food in the belief that if it is expensive it has to be good. This view is totally incomprehensible for me. At the same time, however, I do not wish to demonize those who seek to experiment and innovate, along as it goes beyond simple culinary science. In my view, we should all go back to those trattorias where young chefs try to innovate without betraying their roots.

There are chefs that you rarely see on TV because they are seriously dedicated to their own kitchens, who every day do the shopping themselves in order to find the best ingredients available and not just those that cost the most. This is something that the public understands better than critics do. And the same goes for the world of wine. Aside from the few, distinct and restricted number of ‘iconic wines’ - like Monfortino, Sassicaia and Masseto – there are thousands upon thousands of wines and producers who represent the land they work on with dignity, courage and great passion.

We at DoctorWine try to give a voice to all of them, to make a small contribution in the hope they will have the success they deserve. And we will continue to do this always respecting our readers and with the pride of trying to provide honest information in this slippery but fascinating world of ours. Once again, thank you all.