Dominga Cotarella
Dominga was born in Orvieto and today she is CEO at the Famiglia Cotarella winery. Dominga does not make wine, however, she tells, sells, celebrates and promotes it around the world. Along with her, Marta and Enrica – cousins on paper but sisters at heart – are at the helm of the winery. Their passion for wine is a legacy handed down first by their grandparents and then by their fathers, which has now become a conscious choice.
Since 2017, they have started Intrecci – Academy of Advanced Waitstaff Training with the aim of creating professionals and managers of the highest level in the restaurant market. The name of this project recalls the three Cs of their surname, but it is also a symbol of “cultura” (culture), “conoscenza” (knowledge), “coraggio” (courage)“, “classe” (class)”, and “calore” (warmth). On April 17, 2021, the Fondazione Cotarella was created: it promotes and supports lifestyles, habits, studies and treatments marked by a healthy and balanced diet starting from childhood and in tune with nature.
Fondazione Cotarella’s projects contribute to advancing studies and scientific research in the field of agribusiness for land development, innovative models aimed at the enhancement of rural areas, and the creation of smart villages, as well as rehabilitation and treatment projects.
The Blind Guy’s Guide to Blind Tasting
We use all five senses to take in 100% of the information we experience in life. Eyesight comprises 85-90% of this information. Why? We will discuss and attempt to answer this question during this session. Sensory literacy is the ability to be able to take in data from all five senses, parse that data, and make logical conclusions. We will explore sensory literacy.
Wine is a beverage that we all think we know and love. But when have we had the opportunity to taste wine without eyesight? In this educational and entertaining presentation, Dr. Hoby Wedler, Wine Educator and Ph.D. chemist, will walk participants through how wine is a near perfect example of the intersection of art and science. When we think about art and science, we tend to separate them into separate buckets in our minds. However, they are extraordinarily similar and have an exceptionally fine intersection between them. Wine straddles this introduction brilliantly and this presentation will explore this concept along with many more by considering both scientific and artistic aspects of grape growing, wine making, and wine tasting.
Guests will be blindfolded and asked to prime their aromatic vocabularies with a series of aroma samples prepared by Hoby and his team. These aroma samples define olfactory vocabulary words, much like a dictionary provides definitions to words in written and spoken language. The experience will conclude with a tasting of four wines where we will smell, taste, and analyze the four wines in detail as a group.
We use our eyesight to obtain 85-90% of the information we take in from our surroundings. What happens when we temporarily remove such a dominant sense and focus all our attention on wine when we are not distracted by eyesight? Come join the fun and find out! We guarantee that it will be a memorable experience nothing like any other you have experienced before.