No, we are not shifting gears to Italian language, not yet! It is just the name of the 14th International Wine Competition that just concluded at Verona, a few days ahead of Vinitaly, the 40th edition of which is being organised by Veronafiere, the organisers of Vinitaly India.Being here has been a great experience...

... not only because I was one of the 42 wine journalists invited from 36 countries to take part as one of the 105 commissioners in the competition that saw about 3500 wines entered from 30 countries. I was, perhaps, the first one invited ever from Delhi since it was started in 1993,

... not only because I had the opportunity of tasting 189 wines in four and a half days, from 15 countries. This ihad wines from 22 categories, included sparkling and liqueur wines,

... not only because I was directly involved in the decision making process of 153 wines, 36 being the top wines that were tasted once again after they reached the Finals and were really the pleasure part of the competition. There were 21 groups called the Commissions, each with 5 members,

... not only because the Concorso gave me an opportunity to sharpen my olfactory power and tasting capabilities by continuous blind tasting and comparisons of several wines from the same category and classification at the same time,

... not only because I had the opportunity to interact with 42 enologists from Italy and 21 more from around the world and discuss and learn from them about many aspects of wine making in general and their countries,

... not only because I learnt to swim through the extremely complicated, professional, transparent and random judging process of the biggest wine competition in the world. No other event belonging to the International Federation of Major Wine Competitions, with Head Office in Montreal, can boast of such statistics of 3500 wines from 30 countries. The results would be announced on the eve of Vinitaly opening and we have no clue on the results, neither do we care ,

... not only because the Event forced me to practise my broken and defective Italian, as it was the only available medium of communication with several people. Most Italians in India are busy polishing up their own English speaking skills or lose patience fast with my tootie footie language,