With 630 accredited, 32 foreign journalists and the directors of the main Italian wine guides, “Words of Wine” has set another great success for the wines from the Abruzzo Region, confirming its rise to the international limelight.

Conducted by Gioacchino Bonsignore of the Tg5 and by the sommelier Adua Villa, the event took place during the Wine Tour 2013, which has brought the most important oenological journalists to discover the food and wine culture of the four provinces of Abruzzo.

The competition, born to incentivize the promotion and to valorise the image of the Abruzzo’s wine, has awarded:

Italian and foreign press category

• Red wines: Luciano Ferraro (Corriere della Sera)
• White wines: Paolo Massobrio (La Stampa)

Specialized press category

Daniele Maestri (Bibenda)

Online press category

• Italy: Alessio Noè (Gambero Rosso.it)
• Foreign: Giancarlo Politi (Flash art on line)

Radio category

• Radio 24 ”Voci D’Impresa”: award collected by the Chief Editor of Radio 24, Maria Piera Ceci

Italian TV category

• Italy: La7 with the program “Fuori di gusto”, award collected by Tinto who together with Fede is the anchorman of the program
• Foreign: Class CNBC Bloomberg

Photography and Documentaries category

• Linea Verde (RAI), won the prize for the category, and the award was collected by Rosaria Rumbo, director of the program.
• Bruno Vespa has received the special prize “Abruzzese DOC”.

The following journalists from Abruzzo have been awarded:

Silvano Barone (TG3 Regione), Antonio De Frenza (Il Centro), Andre Taffi (Il Messaggero), Marco Patricelli (Il Tempo), Berardino Santillo (Abruzzo Web), Pasquale Tritapepe (Agricoltura Oggi), Rete 8, award collected by Pasquale Pacilio.

The ceremony of the prize award was enriched by the many appreciative comments and suggestions made by the well known personalities of the Italian and foreign enology that were present.

Julie Arkell, international guru-journalist of wine, often present in the programs of the BBC dedicated to wine, remembered during his speech the fact that “producers from Abruzzo are doing a lot in the communication field, but may still do more. You must be courageous, you must promote your history, the beauties of your land and hence your wines”.

The journalist Bruno Vespa explained that in his opinion “the Abruzzo’s Montepulciano has inside a lot of the character of the people from Abruzzo: the strength and the flexibility. Today, this award reminds me of my childhood and of the Cerasuolo’s perfumes of my hometown”.

Enzo Vizzarri, director of the guides Espresso for restaurants and wines, wanted to incite the Abruzzo’s producers by telling them “you should have started before doing communication, to talk about your wines. The wine grows when you play with three factors: quality, identity and marketing”.

Alfredo Tesio, a known face from the State television from Denmark and who loves Abruzzo answered Vizzari by saying “We, from overseas, discovered a long time ago the quality of Abruzzo and of its wines”.

Marco Sabellico (curator of the wine guide of the Gambero Rosso and Gambero Rosso Channel), Marco Bolasco (Chief Editor of Slow Food Editor), Gianni Bruno (Brand Manager of Vinitaly) and Davide Paolini (Il Gastronauta – Radio 24) also intervened.

Davide Oldani, celebrated chef of international level, who has given a series of lessons about communication in the food sphere at some Universities from the United States, among which Harvard, has expressed a concept that should guide the improvement in the food and wine sector: “the substance does not changes, is the form that evolves, and it is over this idea that we should work in order to make Abruzzo’s wine always more known”.

Franco Maria Ricci, the number one from Bibenda and President of the World Sommelier Association, remembered the large space given by his magazine to the wine from the Abruzzo Region “we have always known the value of the Abruzzo’s wine. We have always believed in a great future for this region, which has everything to become of worldwide importance”.

Other foreign journalists have spoken about how our wines still have a great growth potential overseas: Constance Reuscher, from the famous German newspaper Die Welt, explained the peculiarities of the German market, while Emy Kameyama, President of the Japanese Sommelier Association, spoke about how the Abruzzo’s wine, specially the Montepulciano “is particularly indicated to be associated to the flavors of the Japanese cuisine, so different from the western cuisine. This is something else to work on in order to make the Abruzzo’s wine better known in the Rising Sun”.

Lastly, some of the foreign journalist present at the Wine Tour, as the renowned Susan Hulme, Andrew Catchpole, Chaim Helfgot, after days of visiting and getting to know the Abruzzo’s producers and their wines spoke of the high levels reached by our wine, and that even they who understand wine were not aware of it. They also expressed their will to talk about our wines on the specialized media in the entire world.

The winners received the “Il Calice di Onice”, specially made for the Words of Wine by the Abruzzo’s by the sculptor Ettore Spalletti, one of the most estimated Italian artists overseas, who has presented his work at the Guggenheim Museum and at the MOMA from New York, at the Musee d’Art Moderne from Paris and four times at the Biennale di Venezia.