To guide Stage #44 of the Sommelier Wine Box (discovering the wines of Central Italy) we turned to the passion of the sommelier Francesco Cannizzaro.
We had him tell us his story.
« The love for wine is born no differently from other similar passions. It can occur slowly, grow gradually and steadily. Or it can smolder in the ashes for years and then suddenly explode, perhaps with the help of a special chalice.
Here, it went like this for me: I have always drunk wine, even the overly artisanal one that my father made me taste when I was 14 or 15 and which I continued to drink until I lived in Sicily. It was a fundamental step, because that wine obtained somehow from home winemaking unconsciously directed me towards more important glasses. In Milan I became an AIS sommelier and taster. At the same time I rediscovered myself as an enthusiastic communicator and blogger.
It's a fantastic world, that of wine: the best people I've met in my entire life have drank at least one glass with me, in the cellar, at a rough wooden table or at a bright party. I studied wine, how it is born, how it evolves, how it is served and even how it dies. We know everything about wine and yet in the knowledgeable and hyper-technological world of today we tend to underestimate its transversal empathetic power.
A glass of wine is able to connect people who are apparently different from each other, smooth out their differences and enhance their affinities.
Wine unites and is an exceptional communicator, good for all seasons. It carries with it the spirit of the winemaker who created it, it transmits its essence, its philosophy, its soul. The benefits of a good glass, especially if coming from a small winemaker, are immense.
Italy is full of small winemakers, sometimes heroic, sometimes crazy . By drinking their wine you come into contact with them and their world, but you have to find them: it's not easy. I remember the words of one of the wine men I was lucky enough to meet: Wine is research.
Don't stop looking, ever. With the spirit of a researcher I will accompany you on a journey through the wines of Central Italy. A certainly sensorial journey, through the wines of three companies that produce wine prioritizing respect for nature and minimizing intervention in the cellar. But also a geographical, territorial journey with which to understand - by smelling and tasting the wine - what realities are behind it: in the space of a sip there is so much to understand. »
Francesco Cannizzaro
