EVENTS
Canada: the first public wine tastings restart from Italy Despite a prolonged lockdown until September, Canadians increased their consumption of Italian wine by 12%. If Alberta is conf irmed as the state with the lowest alcohol taxation, there is important news also coming f rom Ontario. Here is the Gambero Rosso World Tour report
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anada experienced one of the longest lockdowns in the world, with restaurant dining only restarting in September 2021. This is why there was so much anticipation in Toronto, but also some doubts for the Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri event. Doubts were erased after a few minutes into the tasting. The first major public event in the city on wine was a true tribute to the wealth of the Italian vineyard, with 60 participating wineries and five seminars conducted by yours truly together with Marco Sabellico.
NEWS FOR RESTAURANTS AND MONOPOLIES On November 22nd at the Liberty Grand Complex we gathered extraordinary energy and the desire to start out again. “The worry lasted a few seconds, then I witnessed extraordinary enthusiasm, we needed to resume doing events like this. With the division into tiers, as we are experiencing with the monopoly, such events can easily be put into practice. The curiosity about Italian wine is getting stronger,” commented Stacee Roth, new director of LCBO, the monopoly on spirits in Ontario. And precisely on this front there are
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important innovations, in fact in 2021 the restaurants in the city were also able to sell wine directly, transformed into actual wine shops, strengthening the e-commerce front and expanding the variety of labels available on the market. All this in a context that continues to be very positive for Italian exports which from January to August 2021, according to ISTAT data, went from 215.3 million euros to 241.8 million euros with an increase of more than 12%. Considering volumes, the overall growth recorded in the period was 5.7%, from 49 to 51.8 million litres.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022