Binge-ing in Italy?

A friend once told me that when an Italian drinks too much, they don’t say he’s drunk too much; they say he hasn’t eaten enough food yet. By that standard, the residents of Alto Adige must be famished, because a new study by ISTAT Aspetti Della Vita Quotidiana (Italy’s National Institute of Statistics) has found that nearly 20% of the population of Alto Adige over 11 years old (yes eleven) has participated in binge drinking in the last year (defined as drinking more than 6 alcoholic beverages on a single occasion). Interestingly all of the other heavy-drinking regions of Italy were also in the northern part of the country. By comparison, Sicilians and Campanians were the least likely to drink a lot in one sitting—just 4.1% and 4% of over eleven-year-olds respectively.

Pinot at the Pinnacle

“By far the most important thing for me from the [Judgement of Paris tasting], apart from it being a ‘win-win’ for both France and California, as the former was resting on its laurels and needed ‘a kick up the backside’ and the latter needed recognition, was that it created a template whereby little-known wines of quality could be tasted blind alongside well-known wines of quality and if the tasters themselves were of impeccable quality, their judgements would be respected.”

—Steven Spurrier (1941-2021), on the outcome of the famous 1976 tasting of French and California wines he helped orchestrate.

Binge-ing in Italy?

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