The Art of Patience

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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I am writing this at the airport, waiting for my plane back to the UK, after an interesting few days in Italy in Verona. What a splendid city, one I haven’t visited before, but must do again when not working. Although sampling the local food and wine can hardly be described as taxing!

One main thought is in my head as I travel home, and that is how much more the Italians value food than we do in the UK.  In case you think that is an over-statement, I really don’t think it is.  Of course, there is a small percentage of the UK who do exactly this – and they are our customers, in the main.  But generally a much higher percentage of the population here, I am sure, care about their food, invest in their food and are prepared to wait for good food, rather than it being something that is a necessity before moving on to do something else more useful.

This afternoon I visited an acetaia (balsamic vinegar house) in Modena, where else!  Sampling some of the balsamic vinegars that the owner’s great-grandfather had started many decades ago, was a pleasure and thrill.  Good things come to those who wait.  The people of Modena certainly learn the art of patience as these balsamics reach maturity at 25 years.  Despite being steeped in tradition, it was encouraging to see that they had developed some more modern flavours recently with ginger, blackberry and even pomegranate-flavoured balsamics to die for!

The reason for being here was a food show that was tacked onto an absolutely enormous wine show – Vinisud.  It just shows how much money there is in wine, both here and elsewhere.  I have absolute respect for those buying wine, as I wouldn’t know where to start with what was more than 10,000 wines to choose from – probably more! With food, the first thing that draws people is the product appearance – with wine all bottles (with a few variations) look similar. It is all on taste. It is difficult to try more than 100 wines in three days, although from what I could see some had tried!

So back from Italy now – I was called to my flight after the last paragraph, and back to Christmas 2014, which needs to be put to bed this week.  Spring seems to have sprung whilst I was away – time to make hay!  Have a good week.