Slow Wine Magazine: From our country to yours

The majority of journalists and critics who write about wine in your language are from your country. They taste the wine and consider its backstory (or not) after traveling (or not) to the wine region, then write from their own perspective. As precise and experienced their observations are, it is impossible for them to have the deep knowledge that comes from living in a place and knowing it like a map tattooed on the back of your hand. The Slow Wine magazine aims to tell the story of wine from its land’s and people’s own perspectives to the international wine world.

This is the premise of the new magazine from Slow Wine, whose first issue was published just two days ago on Friday, April 5. The editors of the Slow Wine magazine, Giancarlo Gariglio and Fabio Giavedoni, presented their new magazine at Vinitaly 2014.

Over 200 collaborators who know Italian wine and its territory intimately have come together for this first issue, giving the magazine an authentic edge. If familiar with Slow Food publications, one may wonder what more this magazine holds than the annual Slow Wine guidebook. The bi-monthly magazine is more than a simple snapshot of the guidebook. Each issue focuses on four themes that are centered around a wine, its territory, a winery, or a region. For the first edition, for example, Valpolicello and Amarone, 2001 and Brunello di Montalcino, Cerasuolo di Vittoria from Sicily, and Cantina Terlano from Alto Adige are the four hot topics.

In creating the Slow Wine guidebook, so much information and so many beautiful stories are left out of the picture. There is simply not enough room. So in true Slow Food style, they spread out the information to dive deeper, examining and savoring the wine at hand before flipping to the next one.

The hopes and dreams of the magazine? They wish to be the insider voice speaking to the outside world about Italian wine. In fact, it is in three languages – Italian, English, and German – and the first person to download the magazine was from Germany (the second from New York). In the English version, the wines each have a US importer listed next to it.

Yes, download: this is one magazine that will be completely digital. Certainly, holding a magazine is physically satisfying, and more relaxing than looking at a computer screen. However, they are technologically limited, beyond dog-ears and pen marks. For a magazine that will also be able to function as a tourist’s guide with the ability to click on winery names to find out more information, access to pages of information that would otherwise be unattached to the hardcopy is fundamental. This is Slow Wine on fast technology.

Some challenges they see for the future include the translation work of communicating from one cultural perspective to another, and from one viticultural reality to another. They also mentioned the graphics and iconography – although I was charmed by the little grape face next to wine reviews, smiling for good aspects and looking worried at some not-so-great qualities. Something to look forward to in the future is collaboration with the students of the University of Gastronomic Sciences, the Slow Food school in Pollenzo. While they already lent their cultural perspectives and translation help for this issue, their involvement in the magazine will likely grow with the new Master’s program the school will be offering in January 2015: Cultura del Vino Italiano, or Italian Wine Culture.

The first issue is free, so download it today!

Cover photo from donireewalker, Creative Commons. License found here.