New York and Houston: Chianti in the USA, paired with cinema, pizza and Tex-Mex

The icons of cinema are in love with Chianti and pizza, par excellence symbols of Italian cuisine in the world, and will accompany the Chianti Consortium on its return, after the long forced stop due to the Pandemic, to the United States with the “Chianti Lovers U.S. Tour 2022”, created by I.E.M. of Marina Nedic and Giancarlo Voglino, together with “VinePair”, a wine magazine that especially young overseas wine lovers follow. There are two dates: January 11th in New York, and January 13th in Houston. 25 Chianti wineries will participate in an original format that combines technical tastings with stimulating and fun experiences, to revive the Stars and Stripes spotlight on Tuscan wine.

The first stop was in the heart of Manhattan, and put the 2017 Chianti Riserva into glasses during a horizontal wine tasting of the seven subzones, led by Adam Teeter (founder of VinePair) and Robin Kelley O’Connor (wine expert), coordinated by Luca Alves (Wine Ambassador of the Consortium). The tasting session was full immersion, a “Chianti Lovers Experience” that rekindled the enthusiasm for Chianti. During the second part, the participants’ imagination was aroused by an unprecedented pairing format: wine and cinema. There were seven film clips taken from various International productions, past and present, where Chianti wine is explicitly mentioned or depicted, confirming its iconic status and popularity the world over.

Professor Hannibal Lecter, for instance, in “The Silence of the Lambs”, who pronounces the disturbing phrase, “I ate his liver with a plate of broad beans and a bottle of excellent Chianti”. There was an episode of the “Simpsons”, set in a Tuscan village where Chianti is produced, and a scene from the legendary “007 From Russia with Love”, where at the restaurant on the Orient Express, next to a bottle of Champagne there is a fiasco of Chianti, and many other gems of great filmmakers and movie giants. Only afterwards was there space for the usual meetings with the trade and the local press, which was followed by a special event dedicated to consumers, the “Chianti Lovers Pizza Party”, a “one night show” focused on two icons of Italian style and taste. The Tuscan Sangiovese was the pairing partner of five famous local pizzerias, which competed in a style and pairing competition of the best wines, all served in magnums and double magnums for the occasion.

On January 13th, the Chianti Consortium will make its debut in the emerging Texas market, in Houston, following a more classic score. In the morning, a seminar led by Jeremy Parzen will lay the necessary foundations to understand the denomination. Then, there will be a “walk around tasting”, starring the 25 member companies and their wines, which will also be presented to a special delegation of buyers that have been invited from neighboring States. Finally, in the wake of the Chianti-local wine and food duo, the curtain will close the American tour with “Chianti Lovers Tex-Mex Night”, where the most famous Italian red wines in the world will be paired with Texan-Mexican fusion cuisine.

“We are very happy to return to the United States with such an important number of companies”, Giovanni Busi, president of the Chianti Wine Consortium commented, “that have the opportunity to show off on an increasingly strategic market to promote Chianti. I am also satisfied with the new formats, as these events confirm the vitality of the Chianti Denomination, which is committed to being not only an Italian excellence, but also a product within everyone's reach, as it knows how to communicate and make itself known even to young people, because of its youthful language and ground-breaking activities”.