Verona were allies during the Roman Empire and a place where the traffic of goods, soldiers, pilgrims and travelers between northern Europe and Italy, as well as between Milan and the Adriatic Sea crossed. This position of the city has kept for over 2000 years and is today an important logistics center and meeting place.
For the annual wine festival of "Vinitaly", Verona relived this intense atmosphere of being a place where people from the north, south, east and west come together with a common purpose. Italian wine today has developed into a quality product and a high end business that rumbles throughout the world.
The wine festival takes place in early April and is also open to individuals who want to explore the Italian wine world. With just a day ticket you can taste as many wines you please among several thousand exhibitors in up to 14 centers which are made up of mainly Italian wine producers. It is possible to taste all of the old favorites, but also taste wines from regions and wineries, which are not known in advance. If the wine is not to your liking, you can spit it out in the spit buckets arranged for this purpose.
One of the halls is dedicated to exhibit culinary specialties such as olive oil, pasta, risotto rice, mostarda, creams crostini etc, from some of Italy's 20 regions. In the same hall, you can also taste the many varieties of beer from Italy, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
There are so many well-established wineries throughout Italy's regions that hey have an entire hall available per region, notably, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Puglia and Sicily are the regions with the largest wine production and wine exports. Two to three regions with less wealthy winegrowers assemble in one hall, which gives a good picture of how much wine grown in Italy and how the wine capital markets are concentrated.
Statistically, Veneto is the region at the forefront in Italy, both in terms of the amount of wine produced in total - nine million hectoliters in 2013 - and in the percentage of Italian wine exports, followed closely by Emilia-Romagna. The southern regions of Sicily and Puglia take 3rd and 4th place, while Tuscany, unlike before rode high on the wave of Chianti, now have to settle for 5th place.
Veneto actually accounts for 3.2% of the total production of wine in the world and is arguably the region that offers the most well-known quality branded wine flavors with green and black grapes - including Amarone, Ripasso, Valpolicella and Prosecco just to name some reputable wines.
The festival of Vinitaly lasts 4 days and is recommended to stay for a few days to be able to get through the wine and other delicacies on offer. Since it is both outrageously expensive and difficult to find accommodation in Verona, while the wine festival takes place, it is advisable to look at holiday homes near Lake Garda and drive into town, which is just 30-40 km from Peschiera, Sirmione, Lazise or Bardolino.
Do you have a taste for more? In one of our upcoming articles you can read about the winery in Valpolicella, Amarone and Ripasso. Sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an article about exciting destinations around the world.