Let’s go ahead with Lorenzo. “What happened in the 80’s?

Excellent vintages followed which enabled the best enologists to develop great and sometimes, new wines. The famous “Sassicaia” reached its peak in the early 90’s, but it took long to succeed.”
What does it mean? It means that wine evolves slowly, experiments need time to find the right level of quality, which correspond to the progressive technical knowledge of both the producer and the enologist, who worked together on that wine over the years and got rid of defects which might spoil the final product.
In the end, what Lorenzo is looking for in a glass of wine? Personality, tradition, uniqueness, which are luckily shared with his customers, no matter how famous a label is, although the main Italian ones are on display on the shelves. In truth he doesn’t intend to satisfy any customer, in a way he likes all the wines in his store, some make him crazy, some don’t, but for sure they’ve got to be interesting, out of the ordinary. In fact  you can buy wines from Veneto, Trentino, Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Piedmont (he’s mad about Nebbiolo grape!), Tuscany, Marche, Calabria and Sicily.
What about clients’ favourite bottles? As for the Veneto, Valpolicella, Soave, Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon, Tocai, Pinot Grigio. Friuli is less requested, while Americans love Tuscany, they can’t do without! Among his customers, lots of Italian who own a secondary homes here and need a good bottle for dinner, and the English who love French wines or national Riserve, like the Verdicchio or the Trebbiano. Some good advices?  As for Red wines, 15-16 E:
Valpolicella Classico, Zardini, San Bonifacio, Verona, was awarded National recognitions
Calaòne Rosso  (Merlot and Cabernet blend), Ca’ Orologio, Baone, Padua
As for the White wines, 10-12,50 E:
Tocai Friulano, Lis Neris, San Lorenzo, Gorizia
Verdicchio dei Castelli Classico Riserva, Fattoria San Lorenzo, Montecarotto, Ancona
Before I forget: upstairs are stored the the best vintages of French and Italian authoritative wines from the early 90’s, ask Lorenzo and he will be happy! 

“Millevini”, San Marco 5362, Venezia
tel/fax +39-041-5206090
Open 10-19, mon-sat
lorenzwine@libero.it

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……….

In early june I arranged an appointment with a friend of mine, and when we met he took me to visit one of his customers who lived in a Villa in the countryside near Padua. “Don’t worry” he said “it’s an informal and easy situation, and this person is a wine collector too, you’ll find him interesting!”. In fact I was introduced to this man as a wine connaisseur. So he took him immediately to his private cellar, and usually what I look for is the amount of bottles, that is quantity, and the labels, that is quality. It is a comparison among what I am already familiar with, what I’ve got and what I’d love to buy but I don’t have yet.

At first I watched, although I felt uneasy, all those wines diserved to be tasted, but in a cellar or in a wineshop this is what you have to do, experience follows knowledge! However for me it was a shock, a large conditioned room filled with what I could hope for -the best Italian labels and vintages, like a real guidebook, or maybe it was much better since bottles weren’t made of paper. All those wines, like jewels on shelves, a secret passion on display…….. I congratulated with him and I wished he would lock me in, while I was asked to select two bottles of red wine. I panicked: which ones? Any of them was hundreds of Euros worth, what was I supposed to do? After all his offer was appealing, so I couldn’t decline. I choosed one Gaja Nebbiolo Sorì Tildin 1997 and one Conterno Barolo Riserva Monfortino 1999, since upstairs eight businessmen were waiting for us, therefore good wine and good business matched. Definately these wines aren’t “easy drinking”, due to the limited production and the collection vintages, so rich in aromas and flavours, each of them diserved a whole tasting session. Then while I was sipping them, I wondered whether I was drinking the wine or the label, and consequently what was my mouth feeling? The image of that wine or the material side of it? Time got the wines better, time was one of the natural ingredients of the wines, and complexity reached its peak enhancing each distinct flavour, and rare aroma.

In front of me people were discussing, but after the first sip of wine they stopped, looked out of the window of the Villa in the countryside, and stayed silent for a while. Were they meditating about the quality of time? Again, was the reputation and the fame of the wine, or its mterial uniqueness?

My favourite one? The Monfortino………..

So, what Venetians like most? For sure they’re crazy about Prosecco, the best sparkling wine locally produced, and among the whites, Pinot Grigio, Incrocio Manzoni and Ribolla Gialla, this one very requested in restaurants too. The king of the red wines is definately Cabernet Franc, while Merlot, Valpolicella and Chianti dropped. This is the city with the second wholesale Fish Market in the whole country, maybe aged red wines don’t feel at home in Venice………..

Mauro’s personal suggestions?

Let’s go with the Treviso province, and with the tasty red young wines such as Cabernet Franc and Raboso by Cecchetto, who also produces a fresh Incorcio Manzoni at 6,30 E. For the same price you can find good value Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio at the Nardin estate, and a dry Prosecco at Barichel winery, 8,70 E. Moving east, in Friuli, it is worthy trying a red Refosco -6,50 E- or a Refosco Superiore -9,50 E- by Valpanera Estate or Linda Ua by Jacuss, an excellent aged blend of Refosco, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot which costs 12 E, a real treat.

Finally, to pay tribute to Venice, a good choice for a Raw fish dish is the Lugana at 8,50 E, a white dry and sapid wine produced by Zenato and Ca’ dei Frati, both of them in the Verona area.

What about foreigners? Over the years the Bottiglieria was mentioned in Venice guidebooks, such as Hachette, Frommers, Gallimard and was featured in the magazine “Travel and Leisure”. About 5-6 years ago the demand was focussed on Amarone, Sassicaia, Brunello di Montalcino and some other Tuscan wines, or Supertuscans. No hope for the local ones, until in the last two years a larger number of people started to ask for wines from indigenous grapes, particularly Europeans, from France, Spain, Germany, while now Americans are a bit frustrated by the expensive Euro.

These wine lovers have become more familiar with foreign wines, due to the globalization and the marketing of the Veneto and Friuli wines, with an improvement of the whole image and importance of genuine “terroir” products.

Bottiglieria Colonna
Castello, San Lio 5595
30122 Venezia
e-mail: botcol@libero.it
tel. & fax +39-041-5285137

What Venetians and Tourists drink? A first hand investigation… - Part 1-

We intend to offer the visitor our point of view about Venetian lifestyle, while avoiding the stereotypes you can often read in many guidebooks or brochures. We are focussing on wine, the way the taste evolved through the last 15 years, which are the favourite wines for locals, and compare them with the foreigners’ demand. In this sense visitors will find a list of good value wines suggested by those who are in charge for the best winestores in the city. Get ready for the next one!

The winestore Bottiglieria Colonna was established in 1993, after a long experience of Mauro Perzolla -one of the owners- as an agent for the best wineries of the Veneto and the Friuli.

Mauro is positive about the improvement in quality of the wines sold on a daily basis, in terms of amount of information, awareness of personal taste, refinement of the demand, while a couple of decades ago regular wine was bad in Venice, cheap and no matter where it came from.

However the information is often deceiving, people are confused by commercials, magazines, newspaper articles and a new generation of “Osti” -in charge for wine bars- who are not really professionals, since wine agents are able to suggest an array of wines everybody likes. Passion and knowledge are unimportant. He noticed some boasting attitudes, although in his opinion there’s a lack of good information and tasting training.

Therefore demand is not constant, it mainly follows general trends according to how successful a wine is. Do clients appreciate more the brand than the wine? Yet he’d rather choose the latter, due to a steady customer care process, he suggests bottles made by small producers or if a wine is sold out, he is able to replace it with a similar one, maybe from another Italian region? Mr.Perzolla ramarked that when clients trust him, the reputation of a wine area or the label is not important any more. Clients don’t mind trying new bottles, and share with him new impressions and emotions. A good advice is always welcome, above all when national economy is not growing and life gets more and more expensive.

For this reason Mauro, Morena and Matteo -his business partners- boast a broad choice of Veneto, Friuli,Trentino and Alto Adige wines (about 80% of the whole stock), stretching from the lake Garda to the borders with Slovenia, most of them included in a price range of min.6 – max 12 E per bottle and produced by small estates which can’t be found in supermarkets. Then some unusual wines from Central Italy -Abruzzo and Marche- and the most authoritative red wines from Veneto, Trentino, Tuscany and Piedmont, together with a good selection of Champagnes, and distinguished liquors from all over the world.

But how Mauro selects these wines? There’s a network of Agents who takes trips to the countryside, explore the hilly areas and updates constantly their knowlwdge of the wine world. They bring him some “weird” bottles, then Mauro and his partners invite his best friends to dinner and taste the wines all together, in a relaxed but critical way. They are used to do it from time to time, and the final decision is based on a comparison with the ones of the same typology, and with the store price range, just to keep the same quality and style of the place.

Besides wine, what do we expect from a bottle? For sure aromas, flavours, and pleasure, but what we should look for is landscape. Which one, or which ones?

We can have both an esthetic idea of a landscape and a wine related one: soft undulating hills, scenic back-roads through enchanting villages, impressive sunsets, or soil and subsoil, drainage and exposure, grapes and prunings, altitude and slopes. There is a further option, though, the producer point of view, dealing with the preparation of the soil, the selection of the grapes, the growing and the vinification methods.

Surprisingly, wine is often out of a human contex, a perfect product of enological techniques, one of the many brands on the market.

A glass of wine is not a crystal ball which makes visible the invisible, but it could be a magnifying lens focussing on the relationship among nature, landscape, and human activity. In a word, civilization. So what do we really find in wine? The expression of authenticity, uniqueness, and identity, a facinating experience involving both senses and mind.

Since wine is a manufactured product, it is the “place” where different experiences meet, such as the merging of international grapes with a rooted local traditions, or of modern techonlogy with local wine processes handed over from father to son over the centuries. And when we think, taste and talk about wine, our major effort consists in coordinating different languages, such as enology, memory and personal experience, all together in a consistent way.

Moreover wine is both real matter and a great metaphor too.

Is it possible to find all we said in a bottle? If it sounds confusing, what you can do is take a seat and taste a glass of wine………. salute!