It was the year 1993, and this photo testifies to a pioneering way of working, at least seen through today’s eyes: a “de visu” operational meeting for the 1994 Guide to the Wines of Italy. We were meeting in Viareggio, that is, about halfway between Rome, headquarters of Gambero Rosso, and Bra, headquarters of Slow Food.
About forty years ago, when a meeting was to be held to set up the work of the Guide to the Wines of Italy of the Gambero Rosso/Slow Food was not possible to do it via Zoom. Therefore, Carlo Petrini and Gigi Piumatti for Slow Food from Piedmont, yours truly and Stefano Bonilli for the Gambero Rosso were meeting halfway. Between Rome and Bra means Viareggio, and in the picture we are all four of us in front of the entrance to the Da Romano restaurant, where precisely the meeting was being held.
I think it was 1993, Stephen was 48, Carlin was 44, I was 39, and Gigi was 32. We were meeting to set up the work for the sixth edition of the Guide. It was March, and the 1994 version would come out in October. We were all quite young and very passionate, Petrini was less famous than today but just as charismatic. Bonilli had just taken over Gambero Rosso Editore after an ill-fated move into the Espresso Guides, which lasted barely a year and a half. Slow Food was literally exploding, with the guidebook Osterie d’Italia which reaped major sales successes.
That halfway meeting
There were also discussions, especially among the “grown-ups,” but in the end we always found a square and there was esteem and friendship among us. Then Wines of Italy was going well, the “Three Glasses,” always decided together, were working, and the critical situation of Gambero Rosso began to be just a memory.
This photo, given to me by Franco Dammicco, then commercial director of Gambero and author of the shot, is a testimony to all this. Those were truly unforgettable times.
