“Milano Wine Week Awards” 2024, “Lifetime Achievement Award” to enologist Riccardo Cotarella

From the best selectors in Italy awarded in the sectors of administration with the “Wine List” award and qualified retail with the “Wine Retail” award, to the international scene with the “Best Italian Wine Selections” (represented by a delegation of 30 head sommeliers from all over the world and selected by Ice-Agenzia): these are the awards given by Mww Group’s “Milano Wine Week Awards”, staged yesterday at Teatro Manzoni in Milan. New, a series of Special Awards, including the “Lifetime Achievement Award - Italian Excellence” to Riccardo Cotarella, No. 1 of Italian enologists, which he leads with Assoenologi, and co-founder of Famiglia Cotarella, one of the leading wineries in Italy, which has received numerous international commendations for its contribution to the wine department and manages more than 100 wineries around the world, “for the extraordinary professional and cultural contribution brought to Italian wine and for the enhancement of our wine school in the world”.
The “Wine Families Award, Past, Present and Future of Italian Wine” went, however, to the Felluga family, owners of the Russiz Superiore winery, for “the extraordinary contribution of growth and vision that Marco and Roberto Felluga have brought to the Collio Friulano area and the Italian wine industry, an extraordinary legacy that Ilaria Felluga projects into the future”. But special awards included everything from the Freccianera Award for “Best Wine List Selection Bubbly” to the Affinatore restaurant in Milan, to the “Best Wine List Selection by the glass” given to Mattia Baroni of Bad Schorgau in Sarentino; from the “Best Wine List Design” Award to Gruppo Langosteria, to the “Visionary Wine List” Award to La Dispensa San Felice Del Benaco in San Felice Del Benaco, and the “Best Maître de Hall” Award to Chantal Feletto of Casa Perbellini in Verona; from the “Special Lurisia Award” to Relais & Château Il Falconiere in Cortona, to the Prosecco Doc Awards to “Best Sommelier Under 30” to Alessandro Scarsi of Trattoria Contemporanea in Lomazzo, to “Best Room Service” to Agli Amici restaurant in Godia, and to the content creators “Entertainment and Wine Training @Tiktok” to The Wine Sommelier Mattia Asperti, “Emerging Wine @Instagram” to Not Just a Sommelier namely Alberto Rabachin, and “Wine Training @Instagram” to Italian Wines by Stefano Quaglierini; from the Carrefour Award “Vintage 2. 0: A New Language of Wine” to Cantine Ferrari - Fratelli Lunelli, to the La Versa ‘Innovation and Contemporaneity’ Award to A' Riccione restaurant in Milan; from the Slow Wine Award for “Valorization of the Territory” to the Ferdy Wild agritourism in Lenna, to the Vendemmie Awards to the “Host of the Year,” or Oscar Mazzoleni of the Al Carroponte restaurant in Bergamo, and to the “Best Chef and Sommelier Pairing” represented by Chef Giuseppe Iannotti and Alfredo Buonanno of Krèsios in Telese Terme), but also by Chef Andrea Aprea and Jessica Rocchi of the Andrea Aprea restaurant in Milan.
“I believe I have really delivered my life to wine and viticulture”, commented Riccardo Cotarella, “passion, love, dedication have accompanied me and still accompany me every day in my profession. Feelings that must necessarily go hand in hand with science, research, and applied technique, all with the ultimate goal of raising the quality of Italian wines higher and higher. We will never arrive at the perfect wine, but the task of winemakers is to improve it year after year and narrate it as it deserves. We have the good fortune to live in an extraordinary country called Italy with its infinite peculiarities, with a biodiversity unique in the world that allows our wines to be simply exclusive and ambassadors of a millenary history which is ours and of our wonderful territories. The award I received today is a further incentive to face the profession with even greater determination and passion”.
The awards were given by a renowned jury of experts chaired by Espresso Restaurants Guide director, critic and gastronome Andrea Grignaffini, and composed of journalists and industry professionals such as Raffaele Cumani, Andrea Cuomo, Ciro Fontanesi, Elio Ghisalberti, Fabiano Guatteri, Andrea Guolo, Lara Loreti, Alberto Schieppati, Luca Turner and Orazio Vagnozzi. “I think that never before as in this moment when catering seems to be made only by chefs there is a need for recognition to those who compile wine lists, which, compared to the past, are really a difficult exercise because of the incredible increase in the number of notches present in the market”, said Andrea Grignaffini. “If at one time the wine list was made up of two or three countries, now it concerns the whole world and therefore implies on the part of the sommellerie who deals with it a truly excellent capacity for mnemonic and critical analysis”.