Gambero Rosso World Tour. Beacons on Scandinavia

Gambero Rosso World Tour in Scandinavia

The Gambero Rosso World Tour drops the three of a kind on Scandinavian soil. The Grand Hotel in Stockholm hosted the first stop, on February 13th, giving continuity to a work on the Swedish market that has lasted for over 20 years. Thirty wineries were present at the show, with a very intense participation of trade and sector operators, confirming an extremely vital market that continues to have a particular bond with Italy, and its organic productions. Lively tasting of the Special Awards of the Vini d’Italia 2023 Guide, conducted by Vice-curator of the Guide, Lorenzo Ruggeri. "Swedish sommeliers are looking for increasingly niche Italian wines, seeking among artisans even from lesser-known regions, I am thinking of Umbria, Calabria or Campania. Amarone is struggling, but I'm sure that in a few years it will recover and come back into fashion," comments the importer of Italian wines in Sweden, Cesarino Gobbi. The Villa Sandi Best Contemporary Wine List Award went to Adria, a wine bar opened in the Swedish capital in 2013. "We have focused heavily on the mix of small Italian producers, with many natural wines and a streamlined and direct offer, the market has rewarded us," commented the owner Michele Montanari.

Oslo, the Villa Sandi Best Contemporary Wine List Award

Two days later, on February 15th, it was the turn of Oslo: the scenic Gamle Logen warmly welcomed 35 Italian producers who had come for the occasion. The consumer segment is certainly more involved than the trade segment, in a market that still functions on a monopoly system, the Vinmonopolet, among the most rigid in the world, but at the same time enjoys one of the highest average spending globally. "If in the past years Prosecco dominated among Italian bubbles, now I see excellent chances for your Classic Method, starting with Franciacorta," said John Gunar Hernholm, product manager of Villa Imports. The Villa Sandi Best Contemporary Wine List Award in Oslo tells a successful family story: the Zannini family. "Initially we opened a pizza by the slice place, we saw that it wasn't the right format, we set up the tables and moved on to pizza pies, then the osteria and in 2022 also a wine bar, with live music and a menu of 100 Italian labels from all regions sold by the glass. We have also just inaugurated a seafood restaurant, Norwegians love Italian cuisine," analysed Luca Zannini.

Valtènesi Consortium in Copenhagen

The closure of the tour came at the Odd Fellow Palaet in Copenhagen on Friday, February 17th. Great protagonists were the 35 producers awarded in the Guide, among the guests was the Valtènesi Consortium, which proposed a dedicated tasting counter and a masterclass that confirmed the quality leap forward of the most awarded pink denomination in the Vini d'Italia guide, with the baptism of the 2022 vintage and some decidedly perky expressions also from 2021 and 2020. The second masterclass instead had a veritable Giro d'Italia, from north to south, among the highlights the Madre 2019 by Italico Cescon, a Manzoni Bianco that in only a few years became proposed as a true classic of Italian oenology. In Copenhagen, the Villa Sandi Best Contemporary Wine List Award went to La Buca degli Artisti, thanks to the work of the Lollo family who have created a very deep list of vintages and grape varieties, with many producers of character and traditional style. The only Tre Forchette award in town? It went to Tèrra, the creative restaurant of Lucia de Luca and Valerio Serino.