Sanremo is ready to begin the music, wine and food. Prosecco DOC in “Casa Sanremo” glasses

The Italian Song Festival is ready to begin, but it will be different this year, as there will be no live audience and none of the extra activities. However, the 71st edition of the Italian Song Festival in Sanremo will go on stage, even in the Covid-19 era, “because Sanremo is Sanremo”. Of course, all the side events will be missing: food and wine mingled with entertainment, music and gossip, which WineNews reported for you in 2020 in a dynamic behind-the-scenes of food, wines and music personalities. Wine will be there, though. Wine will also be in the glasses at “Casa Sanremo”, the heart and soul, together with the Ariston Theater, of the festival. The official toast will be Prosecco DOC, the most famous Italian sparkling wine in the world. It is the “national popular” par excellence drink, in the most positive sense of the term, just like the Sanremo Festival. Historically, the song festival is the most popular event on Italian TV, viewed by a wide-ranging and intergenerational audience.
“A few years ago, the University of Oxford conducted a study showing that people get 15% more pleasure from their wines by drinking and listening to the right kind of music”, pointed out the Prosecco Consortium, whose bubbles “will be the undisputed stars of a unique and iconic location, Casa Sanremo. Since 2008 it has been “the home” of the Italian Song Festival staff. Journalists, sponsors, contestants and guests will alternate during the five-day event in a special showcase where the public will be able to dialogue with the other guests in the lounge, obviously in compliance with the anti Covid-19 regulations. This edition will feature interviews, talk shows, book presentations, award ceremonies, cooking shows and many other events, all broadcast digitally. Plus, the Roof Top of Casa Sanremo will host an authentic culinary journey throughout Italy. Everything will then be cheered and toasted with Prosecco DOC bubbles, the star of the Roof Restaurant at lunch, dinner and at the cooking show”.
It will be limited in attendance, though, due to the Pandemic in progress. The Italian bubbles could not miss marking their digital presence in the web episodes of "Italy on showcase. Viva Sanremo”, the original format of Casa Sanremo dedicated to the Italian territories, in an unprecedented space to promote tourism, culture and food and wine. The Prosecco DOC Consortium will also be present in Sanremo thanks to the innovative digital magazine “Tuorlo” (www.tuorlomagazine.it), which will focus on content created especially for the “food & beverage” world, and for the occasion, linking them to various sectors such as art, culture and lifestyle. All of these events will be accompanied by exclusive camera shots like those of the acclaimed photographer, Alessandro Treves. “Sanremo has always been the home of Italian talents, and Prosecco DOC, with its claim of “Italian Genius”, was obliged to support them in such a particular year”, declared Luca Giavi, director of the Prosecco DOC Protection Consortium. “The opportunity to be one of the sponsors of Casa Sanremo allows us to actively support all the activities that will take place during the week under the hashtag #ripartiamodasanremo (starting over from Sanremo), aiming to support the cultural sector and all the workers on the show, and we hope to restart, post-Covid as soon as possible”.
The public business sector, represented by the federation of public businesses, FIPE / Confcommercio also believes in restarting, emphasizing however, that Sanremo this year, because of the Covid-19 health crisis, will deal yet another hard blow to the restaurant world. “In the last several years, the five evening long song festival at the Ariston theatre, together with the 350 collateral events organized by Casa Sanremo, yielded 1 million euros in turnover for restaurants, catering and banqueting companies.
There has always been a small army of 19.000 people during the song festival days who usually spent at least two nights in the Liguria region city, fueling a local economy made up of agritourism, bars, clubs and restaurants. This year, instead, it will be like a bucket of cold water for public businesses, which, according to FIPE-Confcommercio estimates, will have to do without earning 800.000 euros. It is truly a bitter blow for the sector that has been suffering in an unprecedented crisis, has lost 43.3 billion euros in 2020 alone and for the moment, continues to see no light at the end of the tunnel. Nevertheless, even though it will be very small scale, the catering world will continue to work alongside the professionals who will give life to the 71st Italian Song Festival, as usual, with professionalism, guaranteeing high quality and excellent products and service”.