Prowein 2019 in pictures

db‘s Andrew Oliver, Lucy Shaw and David Hennely show us what real hustle looks like on Tuesday. (Photo: Edith Hancock)

A whopping 61,500 industry visitors from the retail and restaurant/catering businesses made the pilgrimage to Düsseldorf, up by 1,000 from 2018, and hailed from 142 countries (2018: 133 countries).

Spanish wine giant Faustino has launched a new range of wines called the Art Collection boasting colourful labels designed by Colombian artist Willy Ramos. Made in a “fresh and modern” style, the range is aimed at millennials.

Santa Rita’s sustainability director, Elena Carretero, showed us the Chilean wine powerhouse’s latest innovation – a rosé in a can that aims to capitalise on the growing popularity of canned wines around the world.

db‘s David Rose was one of the first to sample the new product.

On the Santa Rita stand we also caught up with chief winemaker Seb Labbé, one of the most creative thinkers in the Chilean wine industry, who was excited to show us his new red and white field blends in the Floresta range.

Our celebratory 200th issue, boasting a bold bespoke Champagne bottle painting created for us by mixed media artist Alexander Hall, attracted a lot of attention during the show.

In fact, our fabulous magazine cropped up in all sorts of places around the fair, making it as far as the Changyu stand (modelled here by db‘s Sophie Allen).

Even the organisers at Prowein wanted to celebrate with us, and sent us a birthday cake…

On Monday evening, the great and good of the world of wine appreciation descended came together for the Winemakers’ Winemaker Awards, which we held in partnership with the Institute of the Masters of Wine.

This year the gong went to Angelo Gaja of Italy’s Gaja wines, joining the ranks of past winners Peter Sisseck, Peter Gago, Paul Draper, and Anne-Claude Leflaive, and Jean-Claude Berrouet.

Gaja owns wine estates in Barbaresco (Piedmont), Pieve Santa Restituta winery in Montalcino (Tuscany) and Ca’ Marcanda winery in Castagneto Carducci (Tuscany). In 2017, the Gaja family undertook a joint venture with the Graci family.

Gaja Wines supplied Barbaresco for the evenings drinks reception. Photo: Edith Hancock)

Together they purchased vineyard acreage on the southern slope of Sicily’s Mount Etna, where you can find Nerello Mascalese and Carricante varieties.

A traditional winemaker, successful businessman and dedicated member of ‘la famiglia’, Gaja is recognised as being responsible for the family’s modern success.

The next day, db went back to school to lean about the wonderful science and/or art of food and wine pairing with the WSET.

Jude Mullins, Managing Director, WSET Asia Pacific provided the class with a range of ingredients to cover the basic principles of balancing five flavours: lemon (acid), marshmallow (sweet), PTC taste papers (bitter), pure MSG (savoury/umami), and salt (er, salt).

We then set to work with three wines, a simple Pinot Grigio, a Gewürztraminer, and a Pinot Noir.

During our travels around the fair, we came across many a colourful product, perhaps the quirkiest of which was this vodka made by larger than life French actor Gérard Depardieu.

The photo doesn’t do it justice, but our prize for the best stand at ProWein goes to the lovely Bruce Jack, who created a beach shack complete with a surf board bar and seagulls suspended on wire for the show. Whilst there, we tasted through his eponymous Bruce Jack range, which recently went on sale at Sainsbury’s, and were in danger of finishing the entire bottle of Casa Diva sweet Moscatel that he makes in Alicante with Ed Adams MW, which paired magnificently with tangy blue cheese.

Finishing off the fair in style, we swung by the Nyetimber stand, next to the WineGB stand in Hall 13, for a well-earned flute of fizz, poured by the English sparkling wine brand’s new senior PR and digital manager, John Franklin (left) and enjoyed by Alex Layton, formerly head of Wines from Rioja for Phipps PR and now head of marketing at Decanter.

WineGB caused ripples across Messe Düsseldorf for being one of the only stands to bring proper teabags and milk. Naturally, we also stopped by for a brew….

Representatives from ProWein and the Italian Signature Wines Academy pose for a group photo at a lavish dinner on board the Emerald Dawn cruise ship, moored by the fair on the river Rhine.

As the evening drew to a close Marlisa Allegrini, president of the wine academy, cooked spaghetti with garlic, oil and hot peppers for the guests, before garnishing each portion with bottarga, telling the diners that she’s had dragged 1.2kg of the ingredient all the way to Dusseldorf in her suitcase.

We were intrigued by this rusting Roller spotted at the Kolonne Null stand – a zero-abv sparkling wine. Apparently it was driven to the fair, as is road legal…

Inside the Emerald Dawn hotel ship was a pool…

and a very comfortable room on the water.

All of which was just a few yards from the Schnellenburg – a restaurant that’s great for a post-show steak.

Apparently, Bollinger does count as a liquid.

Five German gentlemen on their way through security at Düsseldorf airport ended the event on a high after one of their party realised he still had a bottle of Bolly in his suitcase.

Another member of the group opened the bottle so speedily and stealthily that we wondered how many times he’s had to do that before, and they made their best efforts to down it. The lads left about £40 worth of Champagne behind. Jesus wept.