Lollobrigida: “Bacchus by Caravaggio and by Guido Reni at Vinitaly. We will talk about wine and health”.

Wine and culture will meet at Vinitaly, where Caravaggio’s Bacchus and also Guido Reni’s will be “exhibited”, and where “wine and health” will be discussed. The Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, launched many ideas at the meeting of the “Ambassadors of Taste”, in Cavalese (Trento). For instance, enhancing Italian restaurants through a brand that “defends authentic catering”, the battle against Nutriscore that “we will win in Europe, counting on Italy’s fundamental role”; the approval of the alliance between Fiera Milano and Fiere di Parma, which at this point needs only the official stamp, or between TuttoFood and CIBUS, for a large agro-food exhibition platform.
Let’s start with wine. Vinitaly will be held in Verona in less than a month (from April 2nd to 5th, ed.), and one of the central topics, obviously, will be linked to “wine and health”, said Lollobrigida. “We will talk about conscious consumption together with the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Santanchè, with Professor Orazio Schillaci, Minister of Health, and we will also talk with my colleague, Adolfo Urso (Enterprises and Made in Italy, ed.), about companies and on how to enhance our brands within that event, by creating a system”, added the Minister. “One thing that makes me proud”, he continued, “is be being able to take another leap with my culture colleague, Sangiuliano. This year at Vinitaly, for the first time, we will exhibit two works of art. There will be two paintings of Bacchus, one by Guido Reni and one by Caravaggio. These two works of art are very appealing because they bring together wine and culture, and the story of what is behind a product: wine. However, we will be doing the same thing for other products, in terms of history, to make Italian quality understood”.
And, speaking of defending quality, Minister Lollobrigida continued, saying, “we want to invest in the Italian system. I have now launched a proposal referring to the virtuous path started by Teresa Bellanova (former Minister of Agricultural Policies, ed.), and acknowledging a model that defends authentic catering. This does not mean slamming, but rather telling the story through a brand, a certification of a public nature, which offers guarantees. A brand that the Government can give including a specification built together with sector professionals, expert journalists, chefs, oenologists and Ambassadors of Taste, for a catering framework that corresponds to the Italian model. Creating a system is the only way to be able to defend yourself from aggression on the global market. The Italia brand is perceived as an element of quality. This is very good and it needs to be told well”, Lollobrigida continued. Furthermore, the Minister also"blessed"the agri-food alliance, which should be definitive in the days between the Fiere di Parma, that is, CIBUS (the shareholders' meeting was held just recently) and Fiera Milano; that is, TuttoFood (the meeting is set for March 9th, ed.). The alliance, according to Lollobrigida is fundamental, because it is time “to change the perspective. For too many years Italy has competed against Italy, companies have competed against each other. Now, they must succeed more and more in creating a system. We don't have large multinational companies. We don't have this type of impact on the market. We have many small and medium-sized enterprises and a quality trade fair market, which, however, concentrated on “I moved a fair from Bologna to Milan, or from Verona to Vicenza”.
It doesn't work like that. We need to bring, or create great events in our area because they will bring wealth and allow buyers to get to know the products in the place where they are produced. One of the virtues of our products”, the Minister said, “is the synergetic relationship among the territory, production and transformation. The trade fair system can do a great job on this, if it works by integrating and not competing within it”.
Looking at the open European dossiers, however, thoughts return to Nutriscore, an issue on which, according to Minister Lollobrigida, there is a trend reversal in Europe that goes in the opposite direction to the traffic light label, which Italy has always opposed. “I am convinced that we will be able to definitively remove this hypothesis. I have been aware, ever the past few months that Italy's role has been fundamental, and has slowly been involving Ministers of other countries. I have seen a change of course, even from those who had left ensnared by a tool they didn't understand. As Brothers of Italy”, the Minister recalled, “we made the first motion which reported it an instrument of conditioning and not of information. Now, also due to the distorting effect of the algorithm, others have also understood that it did not serve to inform. The decision on the “front of package" labeling, which initially was supposed to be made at the end of 2022, has been postponed for a year. Many consider the postponement an advantage for our Country to explain the impact of Nutriscore at the European level and make known our proposal, which is Nutrinform”. However, the Minister has acknowledged that if there is an advantage to Nutriscore, it is that it “triggered an alarm at the falling point. It made people understand that there is an attempt in the world to standardize products, and not to have quality as a priority, for economic reasons of centralizing wealth in large multinationals, rather than in many SMEs that produce quality. Nutriscore”, he concluded, “has allowed us to be aware; so, now we must take action because we must guarantee the right to information. “We want to inform people well to make them understand what they are buying and how they should consume those products”.