In honor of not letting April pass without a wine trip, we wanted to compile our experiences from the Vinitaly and the City Wine Festival that we attended last April. While preparing this post, it felt like we had visited again 🙂
For those who don't know, Vinitaly is one of Italy's most popular wine fair organizers. This organization, which was founded in Italy and later became international, organizes wine fairs every year not only in Italy but also in the United States.
This fair, held in two different concepts in Italy every year, unlike other international fairs, focuses solely on Italian wines.
The first concept follows the classic fair format. With a 120 EUR ticket purchased for entry, you enter the fairground and can taste unlimited sample wines from different producers at various stands inside.
The second concept is somewhat outside the classic fair format. It takes place within the center of the city of Verona with the feel of an outdoor wine festival. Squares and historic buildings are prepared to host many events within this scope. You feel the festival atmosphere the moment you arrive in the city. There are many visuals to guide you to the Vinitaly event.
At the stands set up within the festival, you can do a limited number of tastings with the tasting coupons included in your ticket. With a 16.50 EUR ticket, you purchase a total of 4 different wine tasting coupons and 1 coupon for participation in one of the non-wine activities. In addition to these, you can participate in Wine Talks, which are organized at different times sometimes only in Italian and sometimes in both Italian and English, by giving 2 tasting coupons. At these Wine Talks, wines that aren't available at the stands are offered, and generally 4 to 5 wines are served. Since there's no advance registration and the seating is limited, you need to grab an available seat as soon as the previous session ends. Otherwise, those who are left last are left out 🙂
Vinitaly and the City is designed for enjoying the city touristically while tasting Italian wines and chatting with friends. Although we loved this event as a concept, it's not very suitable for those who approach wine more technically and want to develop their palate through systematic tasting 🙂 For this reason, we couldn't experience a very great level of satisfaction. Still, we couldn't help but sigh wishing such events existed in our country as well. It would be quite enjoyable to taste wines from all corners of our country in a festival atmosphere on historic streets.
If you want to make a weekend getaway to Italy, including Verona, which has made a name for itself as one of Italy's most romantic cities, in your getaway plan and tasting many Italian wines in a festival atmosphere could be an enjoyable alternative. If your intention is more like "let me drink as much Italian wine as I can, develop my palate endlessly on this subject, and thoroughly cover Italian wine regions," then attending Vinitaly's classic fair could make much more sense.
Favorite Wines
When we attended this event, Grapeful Travelers didn't exist yet 🙂 and we weren't taking systematic tasting notes like we do now. Still, by taking partial notes, we were scoring and recording the wines we drank. Based on these notes, we created our favorites list based only on scores without detailed tasting notes.
Our top 5 favorite wines were:
- Colosi, Salina Bianco, Catarratto Bianco, Inzolia, 2022, White, Italy, Sicily: Has a quite aromatic profile on the nose. Flowers and fruit aromas combined. On the palate, the aroma profile can't maintain the same intensity, but it has an elegant structure. We found it very successful. 7.45
- Baglio Del Cristo di Campobello, Lusìra, Syrah, 2020, Red, Italy, Sicily: It impressed us as an example very different from the classic Syrah profile, more easy-drinking, with minerality at the forefront. 7.25
- Elettra, Primitivo, Negroamaro, 2021, Red, Italy, Puglia: Full on both the nose and palate, a successful example reflecting the aromatic profile of the Primitivo grape. 7.25
- La Colombera, Il Montino, Timorasso, 2021, White, Italy, Piedmont: Although the aroma intensity on the nose is a bit low, it's quite intense on the palate. A nice white with high acidity. Full-bodied. 7.25
- Monte Zovo, Ca'Linverno Rosso, Rondinella, Cabernet Sauvignon, Corvina, 2018, Red, Italy, Veneto: A balanced and delicious wine on the palate. The aroma profile on both nose and palate is quite enjoyable. 7.25