Organizational horror for Merano
I never stop saying to my international friends in wine business – if you want to have something well done in Russia, event or tasting or whatever it is, DO IT ALL by yourself or by people you REALLY trust and know in person. The old saying we have depicting the typical mentality of a Russian is “Too many bad roads and too many fools” is still true.
The Merano wine festival of Italian wines and food, that just took place in Moscow, is a good example of how not to arrange things and is a real shame for its organizers and a horror for the producers who came down all the way from Italy to present their wines in Moscow.
On the first day people that came to the Italian Embassy in Moscow saw a still life of devastation – empty tables with wineries representatives moving around the place nervously. As it came out the organizers forgot to clear the customs for the wines coming in to Russia. They managed to understand the necessity of this step only on Friday, just a day before the fair start. And the Russian customs, you know, doesn’t function during the weekend. I am pretty sure they asked the Ambassador Surdo to help them out. Which was done, and by the evening thirsty public finally saw the wines coming in.
Oddly enough, there was no any kind of strict or even semi-strict face control at the entrance of the Embassy that day and virtually anybody could come in. And Russians, you know, like to drink for free. Moreover, those Italians who brought their food to Moscow felt a little strange in front of a hungry crowd that was virtually ready to eat everything that moves. They hardly cared about the Italian quality – they just needed some appetizer to go with free wine. Big mistake, there was no water to wash down the wine and you can imagine the number of people simply getting drunk there.
The organizers also “forgot” about such weird things as ice to cool down wines – so all the wines that came from the customs went to the tasting “as is” at +25 that was in Moscow that day.
I continue to wonder, where Italians are looking at organizing such “events”? At least, they reported that they have 90% of tasting glasses returned unbroken, what a victory! After this event I am pretty sure that the Merano wine festival has no good image on the Italian wine and food quality at all.
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