MEET ME IN MIAMI
TOMORROW JAN. 21
Taste Franciacorta with me
at Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe
click here for details
It gives me great pleasure to share the news that the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo (Piedmont) is now offering a Master’s degree in Wine Culture.
And I am thrilled to be part of it: later this year I will be one of the instructors teaching “Wine Journalism and Wine Blogging.”
I guess my Ph.D. in Italian is worth something after all!
Seriously, I’m very geeked that my good friend Michele Antonio Fino (below), who teaches food law and policy there, asked me to be part of the program.
Other instructors include Michele (whom I admire immensely, especially for his command of Latin and his work in shaping food policy in Italy), Massimo Montanari (a pioneering Italian food historian and one of my heroes), Maurizio Gily (one of the leading enologists and wine writers in Italy today), Armando Castagno (one of Italy’s top technical tasters and one the Italian wine world’s greatest lecturers), and Alessandro Morichetti (my Italian blogging counterpart, who loves to stir the pot at Intravino, Italy’s most popular wine blog).
But these are just a handful of the Italian wine thinkers with whom students will get the opportunity to interact over the course of 500 hours of study.
Pretty cool, right?
You can read the complete overview of the program in English here.
Michele, the best part is going to be having the chance to spend some time with you on campus! We’re finally going to get to watch “Anchor Man” together!
E mi raccomando: proiezione in lingua inglese senza sottotitoli! Così mi spiegherai l’etimologia del toponimo “San Diego” (il mio loco natio).
Do Bianchi 
A Master’s of Wine Culture, but from the looks of the program overview, it’s mostly about farming and winemaking, with nothing on the business, economics, or marketing of wine?
Indeed, Ksidders, it’s a master program about Italian WIne culture, that means we aim at paying the same attention to the product (under the oenological, viticultural, ecological pov), the culture related to the product (sensory, philosophy, anthropology), the culture of the land where the wines come from (literature, history, history of art) and also, btw, the business of the product (law of wine, labelling rules, marketing, winemaking economics). More ore less 10% of the entire program is dedicated to marketing, economics and related case studies, but the program is not a program in F&B Management: there are many excellent products under this name and we never wanted to compete with them. What we wanted to create was a master able to prepare professionals that perfectly know how wine is made and where (phisically and metaphorically) it comes from, in order to tell it properly.