The “Under” team of Wining.it simply had to be there. I’m talking about Rome Future Week, a widespread event that took over the capital with nearly 400 initiatives, this time divided into eight thematic areas. Could we at Wining Giovani miss it? Of course not.
But our goal was to do something different — something that, true to the spirit of our Association, would attract under‑25s and, at the same time, contribute in some way to the wine‑cultural growth of us Gen Z.
Our reasoning was simple: start with what we see around us and what the media communicate to us.
“Drink responsibly.”
But what does it actually mean to drink responsibly? If I’m holding a Gin & Tonic — fresh and thirst‑quenching — I tend to drink it thinking more about the people I’m with than what’s in my glass. And as for wine… it’s already hard to find someone my age with a wine glass in hand, let alone imagine them stopping to reflect on visual and olfactory analysis.
Our project over the past year has been to train our peers to put their nose into wine and search for aromas and scents that, living in the city, we are not used to.
That’s when the idea struck: why not try the same thing with spirits?
Let’s start with gin.
Let’s imagine a “challenge” (which, honestly, wasn’t and never became a real challenge) between wine and spirits. And that’s how we came up with a tasting, in our own style, expanded to include spirits.
The event began with a bit of olfactory warm‑up, guessing the essence placed on the table. Then came a tasting centered on wines with distinctive descriptors — Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Syrah — and after a gastronomic break prepared by Riccardo, owner of Ristorante Gusta and chef for the evening, we moved on to putting our noses into the gins.
Three small shots: a London Dry Gin with Umbrian botanicals (Aquamirabilis), one with “swamp botanicals” (Bufalo), and one slightly deceptive sample, with a Rome Future Week backpack as the prize for guessing the anomaly. Deceptive because the odd one out was the Tanqueray Alcohol Free.
In the end… it seems the noses are starting to work: 80% of participants guessed the essence on the table (even the chalk!). But the greatest satisfaction was letting everyone taste gin on its own, without tonic, and helping them understand that the differences are there — both on the nose and on the palate.
Will this be enough to get my peers to start demanding quality instead of downing whatever someone pours into their glass?
I think so. Little by little, with effort — but we’ll get there…
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