Happy Ferragosto to all

Let’s enjoy these few days off from work, better yet with a nice glass of wine.

Even if the editorial offices will be closed for a few days, the preparation of the Essential Guide to Italian Wine 2020 will not give us much time off. In any case, I would like to wish all our readers a happy Ferragosto holiday. I say this to those who have followed us for years as well as those who have only recently discovered us, to those who like and respect us and even those who can’t stand us and let us know this in a scathing way. Happy Ferragosto to them as well.

And our thoughts go out to those winegrowers who are holding their breath ahead of a harvest that would appear to be complicated. Many areas have been battered by hail storms that may have been the most violent in decades. In Collio, in Bolzano and in parts of Veneto the storms have been phenomenal. Some have almost totally lost all their whole production, something terrible after a year of work and not just for economic reasons, which are obviously important. In other regions, where the weather was not as extreme, a certain optimism appears to be developing in regard to the quality of the harvest but it is too soon to make any predictions. Nevertheless, we had a cold and wet May, June and July were scorching and while August has been more in the norm up until now, what we can say is that 2019 has been anything but “normal”. We will see.

So let us enjoy these few days of holiday, even the Tax Revenue Office will be closed from August 10-25, and so for two weeks we can breathe a little easier.

Do not drink if you have to drive, something which for those of us who know and appreciate good wine consider obligatory and we try to set an example. Let’s respect the places where we go on holiday and I say this first to myself, naturally, without any pretext of playing the moralist, which is useless and often in bad taste. I know very well that if you love wine you cannot help but respect the environment, that goes without saying.

And so, happy Ferragosto to all.