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Following in the footsteps of other illustrious Italian gastronomic successes - from pizza to pasta, from mozzarella to Parmesan and mortadella - Prosecco is the most recent "made in Italy" product to have colonized the world. But what is its history, and how did it come to be a global phenomenon? Luigi Bolzon retraces the origins of Prosecco's immense popularity back to the story of the Italian emigrants who left their country in the second half of the nineteenth century and the experiences of those who, knowingly or not, were most instrumental in cementing Prosecco's reputation in the UK and worldwide. Peppered with anecdotes and containing a rich tapestry of direct testimonies from the protagonists of Prosecco's ascent in the world of wines, Bolzon's book delves deep into the Italian soul to offer an insightful look behind the production and the continuing success of Britain's most loved bubbly.
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Date de parution

21 janvier 2020

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9780714550121

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Prosecco
The Wine and the People Who Made it a Success
Luigi Bolzon
Translated by Stephen Parkin


ALMA BOOKS


Alma books Ltd 3 Castle Yard Richmond Surrey TW10 6TF United Kingdom www.almaclassics.com
Prosecco first published in Italian by Alma Books Ltd in 2015 This edition first published by Alma Books Ltd in 2019
Luigi Bolzon asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Text © Luigi Bolzon, 2019
Translation © Stephen Parkin, 2019
Cover design © nathanburtondesign.com
Photographic portraits of Alessandro Marchesan, Daniela Franchini, Lucio Altana, Paolo Mancassola, Luigi Colazzo, Pasquale Sarpi, Roberto Gardetto, Roberto Simeone, Roger Nyeko and Teo Catino © Orlando Bonaldo
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
isbn : 978-1-84688-462-7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.


Contents
Prosecco: The Wine and the People Who Made it a Success
Foreword by Dino Maule
I ntroduction
Author’s preface
PART ONE
The spirit of Italian emigration in the United Kingdom
No dogs, no Italians
Types of emigrants
Great Britain and Italian restaurants
British cooking
Italian restaurants in the UK
Two types of restaurateurs
Names of restaurants
The “tyres” guide
Vices
Solidarity
Wine consumption in the United Kingdom
PART TWO
Treviso – the happy province
A brief note on tiramisu
Prosecco
Prosecco in the UK
The Mionetto family
Selling Prosecco
Two types of sales rep
Women sales reps
Foreign promoters
Roger Nyeko’s journey to the unknown
PART THREE
Early clients
Clients from the Veneto
Some restaurateurs
The paladins of Prosecco
PART FOUR
New social trends
Supermarkets
Irregularities in the market
English wines
The UK today
The restaurant business
New ideas
The Italian North-East
Going back to Italy
The future of Prosecco
Epilogue
Notes


Foreword
The success of Prosecco is the result of intuition and creativity working not with the sophisticated techniques of marketing but driven by a human and patriotic desire to impress. It has been one of the most significant episodes among the many which make up the phenomenon known as “Made in Italy”.
In the world market for sparkling wines, dominated by the unassailable reputation and large sales of champagne, and the success of cava, for decades Italy was known for Asti Spumante.
These are wines which are distinguished rivals, but with characteristics that are quite different from those we find in Prosecco. The originality of Prosecco has given it a well-established fame and made it dominant in terms of worldwide sales.
Among all those who pioneered Prosecco and worked together to win international recognition for the wine, I’d like to single out two names: the Mionetto family and Luigi Bolzon .
In January 1989 I became the commercial director for the Mionetto firm, and shortly afterwards I had the good fortune to meet Luigi. Over the next few years the firm became the leading producers of Prosecco in the region of Valdobbiadene.
I can still recall the passion and enthusiasm with which all of us worked in those years, as well as Luigi’s personal commitment as he travelled the world with a bottle of Prosecco always in his case.
His book vividly brings back to me the episodes, anecdotes and experiences he relates; it is not an academic study of the rise of Prosecco as a historical phenomenon, but an act of love and gratitude towards the many people who played their part in that success and whom he describes here in all their humanity.
— Dino Maule




Prosecco
The Wine and the People Who Made it a Success


for Elena, Stella, Silvia


Introduction
The arrival of Prosecco in Great Britain has followed the same routes as Parmigiano Reggiano and pasta. The energy and enterprise of Italian immigrants, dedicated to good food and to the restaurant business, has led to British familiarity with these products and to their being now readily available in places far removed from where they are produced. Whereas the French have traditionally relied on a business model involving sophisticated sales techniques to disseminate their own brands, * the imports of Italian food in Great Britain have been the work of innumerable individual Italians living in the UK. In telling the story of the marketing of Prosecco in Great Britain, the purpose of this book is to recount the various episodes and views of the last thirty years, to record the human and professional experiences of the main characters who were involved, and to capture their attitudes and sensibilities through their own accounts and reminiscences. The general outlines which emerge will help us to understand better the remarkable success story of the trade in Prosecco.


Author’s preface
This story began with a promise I made to the Italian owner of a London restaurant. I told him I would write something about the way Italian restaurateurs had promoted Prosecco and other Italian food products. One day he’d said to me: “Nobody writes about us and the contribution we make to Italian exports. The politicians and the institutions take all the praise for the work that is done by us.” “Don’t worry,” I told him unhesitatingly, “I’ll take care of that.” He smiled: “But are you up to writing something?” I replied: “I’ve never done any – but then again, what did you know about running a restaurant before you owned one?”
My love of Prosecco started at the end of the 1970s, when I was studying in Venice. In those days, before the lectures in the morning we usually had breakfast in a bar – a cappuccino and a warm brioche. But I suffered from digestive problems, and my friend Angelo Pigatto thought that drinking cappuccinos might be causing them, so instead of the traditional Italian breakfast I took to drinking a glass of Prosecco and eating a tramezzino , the kind of sandwich you find in Venetian bars, made with soft bread and with different kinds of fillings. My digestion improved, and I started to sing the praises of Prosecco. In it I had identified something which benefited body, mind and heart.
In the second half of the 1980s I moved to England, as a result of a day I’d spent at the seaside with my friend Ruggero Ragagnin. Two German girls had complained about the fact that neither of us spoke a word of English. So I got in the car and set off north. My impressions of the country, once I’d crossed the Channel, were conflicting. I stayed in Blackpool to do an intensive language course. The teacher spoke to us of the differences between residents of London, where more foreigners lived, and those who lived in the rest of the United Kingdom. He declared that “immigrants bring a lot of benefits to our island. Thanks to the children of mixed marriages, they also improve the appearance of the native population.”
As far as food was concerned, I’d been warned not to get my hopes up. British people ate fried fish and chips, wrapped in newspaper, with their hands: the printing ink was just another dressing, like the salt and vinegar. They ate at every conceivable hour of the day, in buses and trains, standing or walking, or even while driving. I grimaced every time bad cooking smells wafted past me. Untrained and unqualified staff handled food and drink with hardly any attention to basic hygienic norms.
Dating a woman in Britain also worked differently. Offering a drink – gin and tonic, or whisky and Coke – to the girls you met in a local pub was a sure-fire way to get their attention. But the sheer kindness of the people of Lancashire pushed my reservations about eating British food and meeting British girls into second place. If you find yourself in difficulties, the Brits will respond with their usual good manners, asking: “How can I help you?” In the Veneto I couldn’t recall such helpfulness ever being shown to strangers. I admired the sense of civic responsibility, the respect shown by drivers for the highway code and for pedestrians, and I was amused by the self-deprecation and humorous outlook of English people. Public administration works well in Great Britain, and, collectively, the British seem more efficient than Italians, who are forced to adapt to the disorganization of their public services by cultivating independent-minded inventiveness, and who therefore come across as more autonomous.
But six months weren’t enough to become familiar with the new language, so I decided to stay on in the country and find work – a job connected to Treviso and Prosecco.
Gianni Segatta, in describing his own experiences, confirms the problems foreigners used to face in the old days in trying to adapt to British ways:
“After the obligatory spell of military service, I moved to London in 1967, because there were openings for people like me with a diploma from an agricultural college. I already had a contract in my pocket when I got on the train. I was going to work with the bottling and distribution of wine, since in that period in the British market wine was imported in barrels and bottled in the UK. Several Italian friends had described my destination to me in glowing terms, so I arrived at my lodgi

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