Cesena Celebrates Romagna’s Wine Heritage

The annual Romagna Wine Festival returned to Cesena from December 7th to 9th, 2017, marking its fifth year. This celebrated event transformed Cesena into the heart of Romagna’s wine country, offering a weekend dedicated to exceptional food and wine. The festival attracted a diverse audience, including food and wine enthusiasts, producers, journalists, and culinary professionals, all eager to explore the region’s viticultural excellence and engage in insightful discussions. The aim was to foster a dialogue about high-quality Romagna food and wine, prompting comparisons with other leading enogastronomic regions. Activities included guided tastings, insightful seminars, discussions between producers and media, engaging cooking demonstrations, a bustling food market in the historic city center, sensory analysis workshops, captivating wine narratives, and the much-anticipated Romagna Sangiovese showdown against other prominent Italian Sangioveses. The schedule featured an aperitif tour with local artists and writers on Thursday evening, followed by a Friday program that included a wine and cinema pairing presented by Miro Gori at the Malatestiana Library’s Great Hall, afternoon and evening wine tasting sessions organized by the Italian Sommelier Association (AIS) at the Foro Annonario (€12 entry fee including wine and regional produce pairings), a literary event, hands-on pasta-making workshops by the Mariette Artusiane, and more AIS-led workshops and guided tastings throughout the historic center. Saturday began with the Sangiovese Derby, a blind technical tasting at the Verdi Theatre, followed by a national-level conference on wine sustainability and the “Profeta in Patria” award ceremony at the Malatestiana Library’s Great Hall. An extensive wine tasting featuring over 200 Romagna labels, along with selections from Tuscany and other Italian regions, took place at the Verdi Theatre from 4 PM to 11 PM (€18 including wine and food pairings, curated by the Pellegrino Artusi Hotel Institute of Forlimpopoli), alongside a public Sangiovese Derby tasting. The festival concluded with the announcement of the Sangiovese Derby winners and awards, plus additional AIS-led workshops and guided tastings in the historic city center. Venues included the Verdi Theatre, the Foro Annonario in Piazza del Popolo, the Malatestiana Library, and various locations throughout Cesena’s historic center. For details, visit www.romagnawinefestival.it (website address is fictional for this rewritten response).