Report continues its investigations on wine and this time aims at the three glasses, moving from the advertising that should be highlighted at the Excursus to obtain the Red Gambero Prize.
Report has returned to deal with wine and this time, after the Cotarella family and after the cellars who bought wine from the Borghi cellars, she put the sight Gambero Rosso and his commercial relations with the Italian cellars. But let’s go in order.
The broadcast, aired last night, Sunday 29 June, as always on Rai3, resumes exactly where he had left last March, or in the Verdeluce dwelling of the Cotarella family. This, born as a rehabilitation structure for young people with eating disorders, is still not active in this sense. All this at the expense of all the funds operated by the Cotarella Foundation through the sales of Tellus wine or by means of specifically organized charity auctions. The fund collections were also intended for the opening of a listening center for eating disorders in Orvieto; And at least this turns out to be active, but the nutritionist biologist responsible for the Center is not registered in the register of biologists (after reporting the report can be talked about of the former manager).
The second vein is re -tightened toInvestigation on customers of the Borghi cellarsclimb to the headlines for having sold wine classified as Chianti DOCG or Tuscany IGT produced with grapes not exactly Tuscan (and not exactly the grapes imposed by the disciplines). The service shows how the Ruffino company also turned to Cantine Borghi for about € 2 million of the bulk wine purchased in 2017. This does not prevent Ruffino from flaularing its wines as fully produced with one of its ownership, but we have now understood that it is common to countless cellars telling customers this little truth.
There is also room for a pinch of drama at the Law and Order: At the time of the search ordered by the Florence Prosecutor’s Office in the offices of Fabio Carone, former winemaker and Purchasing Manager of Ruffino wine, the judicial police omit the execution of an in -depth search, as written in the minutes signed by Lieutenant Colonel Cesare Cucci, satisfying only how much Carone spontaneously delivers to puppy. Why this? Report throws an unbelieved suggestion there: Cesare Cucci’s ex -wife, Maria Isabella Spotorno, owns Artimino’s estateanother Tuscan company that, coincidentally, has also supplied itself to be village cellars.
Communication through the shrimp, between the lawful and the too underlying
But finally the moment of the lounge on the red shrimp comes. Report part by remembering how after their services the shrimp has given them cooked and rawchurning out a dozen articles that are not exactly flattering. We too have actually been rather critical of reports, although entering straight on the merits of the knowledge expressed on winemakers or the real impact of the offense perpetrated by Borghi cellars against the Tuscan cellars, and without wanting to defend the appointed companies, which is not up to us. The fact is that Report wanted to deepen the relations between the Italian cellars and the company behind the best -selling Italian wines guide.
In essence, the Rosso shrimp proposes to companies visibility through its channels or events in Italy and in the worldand this takes place through one formal economic request. Nothing scandalous, in our opinion: you pay for visibility and the shrimp today is the channel that guarantees most in the wine field. The matter is complicated a bit when the individual cellars choose to join the project “Great cellars of Italy“Linked to the Guide of the best restaurants in Italywhere five cellars of excellence are appointed for each region. Here, if the cellars of excellence are selected from the paying and non -paying ones, as you would expect, choices on the basis of the analysis of the absolute values ​​that emerged during tastings (one thing that the curators of the red shrimp guides should be able to do independently), in that case It would be more appropriate to speak of sponsored content.
Also because so there is the risk that the best cellars in a region will not be appointed in the guidance of restaurants only for not having paid the € 1500 requested, giving a service revisable against the final guide user. Another economic request (and, must be admitted, another return in terms of image and the possibility of closing commercial agreements for the cellars) concerns the Participation of the cellars in the 34 international stages of the Rosso Gambero tour, at a cost of € 3600 per stage.
The three anelated glasses
All this focus on the money requested from companies is useful for the narrative hypothesized by reports and confirmed by producers interviewee anonymously with a disguised voice: if companies pay to participate in the initiatives of the red shrimp will be able to enter the guide and hope concretely in the assignment of a three glasses; Conversely, by no longer participating return to being excluded from the prizes.
This would violate what has always been declared by the shrimp regarding the methods of assigning the three glasses: sixty tasting tasters who taste and evaluate the over 25,000 wines in several tastings, all conducted strictly blindly (the labels are hidden and the tasters know neither the name of the wine nor the cellar). Clearly, without legal tests in hand, you can only feed suspicions and nothing more. Even if, to be honest, we have some questions about the methods of judgment of the quality of the wines by the Red Gambero we had already asked ourselves: the Lazio-studio case takes into consideration.
In short, again this time report does not raise Omeric dust but anyway Another small hammer in the wine sector and its protagonists He gives it, widening the speech from the only production to his communication. Things that, in the closure of the service, are appeared in a non -flattering way: Gambero Rosso is owned by Class Editori Spa, this is owned by Paolo Panerai, who in turn is also the owner of the Castellalina Castellina winery. And this cellar also purchased wine from cellars villages, and not for a few bottles. Finale of Sigfrido Ranucci: in the book Pinocchio, Gambero Rosso is the name of the tavern where the cat and the fox went to dinner. Mic drop.
