I will do a little shameless PR for myself and vinowire.com, a very cool website where Italian-challenged readers can find news and insights into the fabulous world of Italian wine. The editors are two extremely knowledgeable chaps, Franco Ziliani and Jeremy Parzen. I wrote a brief piece on Benvenuto Brunello 2009 for the site yesterday.

At the start of the press conference, Stefano Beltrame of the Italian Embassy, spoke about how pleased he was to participate in Vino 2009. The Italian government spent a considerable amount of money on this venture as is evident from all the advertising seen around the city. In 2008, for the first time in 10 years, Italy has surpassed France as the world’s foremost wine producer. Italian wine production increased by 8% in 2008 while French wine production decreased by 5%.

Stefano also mentioned at the start of the conference that he had been at an event at the consulate earlier in the day to commemorate the SHOAH or the Holocaust. January 27, the day of the press conference, is also the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. He told me later that day that they had been reading the names of Italians who died during the holocaust. I was very touched.