Another Year of Success for Only Wine Festival in Città di Castello, Umbria

Posted by Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 5/03/2022

Another Year of Success for Only Wine Festival in Città di Castello, Umbria

A celebratory atmosphere in the small Umbrian city of Città di Castello this weekend, 30 April to 2 May 2022, was due to the return of the face to face wine event Only Wine. It was held at Palazzo Vitelli a Sant'Egidio, a splendid 16th century palace built for the celebrated local cavalryman Paolo II Vitelli which faces a sprawling open-air green garden where attendees had the luxury to enjoy in between glasses of wine.

Only Wine is an event dedicated to wine producers hailing from all over Italy who are in the under-40 year old bracket and those who have very small productions. In this year's edition, there was also the participation of seven small champagne producers who had been well-regarded by attendees. Making the event richer is the collaboration of the Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers (FIVI) which focuses on the great importance of safeguarding the quality and authenticity of the Italian wines.

"It is a great privilege for us to have the Italian Federation of Italian Winegrowers alongside, and an occasion to further increase our qualitative offer. As always our values have centered on the issue of quality and innovation and I think it is one great growth opportunity for Only Wine and for our wine cellars," says Andrea Castellani, creator of Only Wine.

"We are pleased to participate with our content in this event to bring to the attention of the public two issues that are truly strategic for us: on one hand that of environmental sustainability, which sees us engaged at the associative level with the national project FIVI4Future: the winemakers cultivate research; and on the other, that of generational change in the world of viticulture, which we experience as a fundamental element to guarantee the continuity and innovation, grafting on an extraordinary heritage of tradition and knowledge of inevitable cultural and technological evolutions that of generation after generation the winemakers have always known to utilize," states Matilde Poggi, President of FIVI.

Only Wine is not only aimed as an exhibition of the wine labels but it also pursues an important objective of creating a valuable experience of connecting the consumer and the producer between tasting of their wines. In addition to this, masterclasses focused on specific themes of wine under the guidance of experts on the field were organized throughout the event.

Champagne was focused on in the masterclass conducted by Nicola Bonera and Gianluca Grimani, respectively the director of the AIS (Associazione Italiana Sommelier) publication Vitae and head taster for AIS Umbria. Wine critic Chiara Giorleo had tackled very interesting subjects like the Moscato di Saracena, a very limited production of crystal-clear amber intensely perfumed and well-balanced sweet wines from the Calabrian town of Saracena that is just produced by less than 10 producers who are still using the same recipe from the year 900, using four local grapes: guarnaccia, malvasia, duraca and moscatello. There is also the masterclass about the Wines of Vesuvio, wherein participants were enlightened about how the factors of volcanicity that Mount Vesuvius have affected the wines of the area traveling from different representations of sparkling wine to white, rosè then red. Going lighter with thirst-quenching wines: white, rosè or red, that can easily be enjoyed without food are the Vin de Souf as explained by wine blogger Francesco Saverio Russo in his masterclass.