Our favorite VinItaly 2002 moment...

[Botafogo]

was when we were sitting with a producer of a varietal called Friularo and another potential American client says "these wines are good but no one has ever heard of the variety or the zona so I can not sell this stuff" to which the proprietor (the second owner of the cantina since 954 AD!) lays down his press kit which begins with glowing specific reviews from Pliny the Elder in 70AD, lists prizes and trophies awarded over the ensuing 1900 years and is brimming with poems from famous Italian poets and writers of the 15th and 16th Centuries talking about how it is not only the best wine available in Venice (out of scores listed from all over Europe and the near East) but that it will "heal the sick, raise the dead and allow one to digest rocks"! And, while we are at the stand, a buyer from Shanghai walks in to ensure his allocation of the passito secco!!!!!

Roberto, off to dinner with Romano Dal Forno...

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 04-15-2002).]