You will hardly find Millevini winestore if you don’t love exploring the narrow and a bit smelly streets at the bottom of the Rialto bridge, in the district of St.Mark. But if you’ll ignore the “Pizza al taglio” place just on the corner of a tall building, you will find one of the best Music Cd’s shops in the city, then a casual “osteria” and in front of it, a couple of windows which are as large as the entire  store, as if there would be nothing to hide. Such a thing in a very touristy area is a good sign, believe me…..  As you enter, the desk is on the right side, small enough to leave as much room as possible to the king of the place, wine! Millevini opened in august 2002, run by Lorenzo Menegus, who approached wine in 1998, first running a wine bar, then in a place of his own at the Marco Polo airport in Venice, where Lorenzo could display his own selection of premium Italian wines.
Throughout the years Lorenzo has developed his own idea of wine and the market. He says “In the early 80’s wine for the elite choice of a limited number of people. Food&Wine Magazines were few,  the medias weren’t interested in it, and the production was much larger than today. In fact wine was extremely popular in Venice and the Cadore, the Veneto Alps. One one hand, the wealthy and historical city, on the other hand the poorest area in the whole region.”

Definately true. In our region wine was considered as food, rich of sugar and low cost energy, since life in the mountains or in the Lagoon was hard and needed calories to survive. Despite the poverty,  Veneto could boast a long experience in wine production and people didn’t have any pregiudices about it,  wasn’t wine served at the Last Supper too? You could find it even in the Gospel, and Veneti people  were very religious.   After all in the old days a glass of red wine was part of the prisoner’s diet in order to disenfect the blood and prevent deseases, and a visit at the Jail House in the Doge’s Palace would be worthy……….