Wine people

Wine people are Made in Italy at its best and constitute the architrave for the tourism, hospitality and food service sectors. However, although they among those hurt the most by the Covid-19 emergency, they have no representation in the government’s coronavirus task force headed by Vittorio Colao.

Wine people do not just make wine.  Thousands of producers also safeguard the environment, building detainment walls against erosion and seeking to practice sustainable agriculture, performing actions that government should be going. This us, of course, in their own interest but also that of the general public. They have created an economy in places that otherwise would have been abandoned, drawn thousands of visitors to their estates and generated a fundamental cash flow from tourism, wine and food. They have been a natural ally for Italian restaurants at home and abroad.

Wine people have taken part in thousands of events to have their wine tasted everywhere they can, more out of pride and passion than economic benefit. And many times I have stood by their side to talk about territories, places and people and not just the wine we had in our glasses. This in places like Tokyo, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Stockholm, Beijing and Moscow and at times in front of people who weren’t exactly sure where Italy was. However, in the end they knew where Molise, Basilicata and Collio were, which some Italians don’t even know, and this made them want to visit these places.

Wine people include Cantine Aperte as well as Vinitaly, which this year you can criticize as much you want but that remains very important outside Verona because it takes part in other trade fairs organizing the participation of many wineries. Wine people means movements like those for “natural” wines as well as the national enologists’ association Assoenologi, together with the many schools teaching winemaking and appreciation, producer associations, sales people, those responsible for marketing and communication and even people like us who write about wine. Wine people are associations like Ais, Onav, Slow Food, Fisar and Fis and all other didactic groups.

Wine people offer the world samples of a territory, allowing many around the world to have a taste of Italy by opening a bottle of wine, one that today constitutes evidence that Italians are still here, have not stopped and continue to produce wine in the limits possible. Wine people are agricultural artisans who represent Made in Italy at its best. Wine people are people like Piero Antinori and Lorenzo Accomasso, Francesco Valentini and Gianfranco Fino, Cavit and the wine cooperatives of Alto Adige.

It is a world rich in humanity, people who put their hearts into overcoming obstacles. Not everyone is a wine person but many are.

Today, wine people are in trouble. There are no wine people in Colao’s government task force. No one who understands that wine is an economic architrave for the tourism, hospitality and food service sectors, all of which are in crisis. Sidelining wine people is not only a mistake, it is madness. Wine people are accustomed to rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, but this time they can’t do it alone.