Wine: Children of a Lesser Bacchus and The Tigullio Scene

After non-stop immersion around p2p and piracy, it’s time to reconnect with distincly earthly matters: the vine. Today I flew to Venice, then travelled on to Ravenna, so as to visit a special wine fair named “Children of Lesser Bacchus” which takes place in a small town called Bagnacavallo in Romagna. Behind this curious title lies a festival dedicated to indigenous grapes of the type you will probably never find in your local wine shop. More than 300 different grape varieties are used to produce wine in Italy, far more than any other country, although most are produced in discrete quantities aimed at local markets or afficionados. This festival is one of the rare opportunities to try many of these wines, and I’m keeping this post brief so as to be up early and put in a serious day’s work.

The following day I shift location to Rapallo on the gulf of Tigullio for the annual meeting organised by the most important wine blog/community in Italy, tigulliovino.it. I’ve been following their reviews for some time and am impressed by their approach, so a meeting where their favourite producers show up to present thier wines is too compelling an offer to refuse.

Alas it will only last one day, and damn the Appenines, whose startegic importance I only understand now: despite being at the a couple of hundred kilometers as the bird flies, the journey will take me six hours as we have have to circumnavigate the mountains… Suffering in the cause of pleasure? Well, someone has to do it 🙂