Mrs. Robinson and Discovering the Obvious

Don't worry, this is not about the film The Graduate or Ann Bancroft, who played the role of the provocative Mrs. Robinson. Instead I will talk about another Mrs. Robinson, Jancis Robinson, a famous Master of Wine, author and journalist. She is a true authority who has written many books, the latest of which is entitled Wine Grapes and is essential for understanding international ampelography. She also writes for the Financial Times where she has a very popular weekly column. In other words, this woman is a true star for her competence and authoritativeness.

When she came to Cortina d'Ampezzo to take part in Vino VIP, an event that was the brainchild of the late Pino Khail and is today run by his nephew Alessandro Torcoli, the director of the wine monthlyCiviltà del Bere, in collaboration with Vinitaly, everyone there expected her to contribute something really important to the debate about Italian wines. And she, in fact, rattled off a list of things about what 'Italian wine' should do to improve its presence and prestige on international markets. It was kind of a 'to do list' in which Mrs. Robinson included:

1. focus more on quality and less on quantity;
2. make wine beginning in the vineyard rather than the in winery, taking advantage of the latest technology;
3. avoid getting obsessed with preview tastings because the risk is that of tasting wines that are not ready;
4. Italians should try to be more like the French and offer the market, aside from the latest vintages, a broad choice of older vintages;
5. packaging is fundamental, it is a winery's calling card.

I will stop here out of national pride. I can't help but ask myself whether Mrs. Robinson realized who she was talking to, an audience made up of wine professionals, producers and trade journalists who, although Italian and apparently in her view backward considering what she said, have traveled the world over and everyday have to deal with the leading international markets.

I say all this because it is quite rare for me to read or hear such triviality as that expressed by Mrs. Robinson, who in this case appears to have discovered the obvious. It is not that she said anything wrong, on the contrary, it's just that I expected something much more from someone of her stature. For example, she could have spoken about the trend towards simplification, which is key for the sector, or made an analysis of the language of wine communication and its excessive self-reference, not to mention ways to approach markets that are very different from each other in regard to their maturity and segmentation. After all, the 'talk show' she took part in was entitled: ''innovation in wine, from the vineyard to the market''.

Instead she told us that we have to produce less but better and we need to pay more attention to the vineyard, all things that Veronelli was saying 50 years ago when they had more meaning since the wine-making reality in Italy was much different than it is today and these were truly innovative and pioneering proposals. I'm sure some of you remember those times. Unfortunately, no one there had enough national pride to stand up to her, to point out to Mrs. Robinson that many who were present already knew what she was saying and had known it for quite some time, perhaps decades. This even if we are just Italians.