Quality festivals and food and wine, the best of Italy’s flavours

Journey to the tastiest Italy from 30 March to 2 April at the Agri and Slow Travel Expo at the Bergamo Fair. Where the quality festivals, the proposals of food and wine tourism, the paths of spirituality and art will be reviewed.

Today’s food and wine tourist is looking for emotions, experiences to live to get to know the places he visits through the excellences that distinguish them. Italy, as indicated by the Report on Italian Food and Wine Tourism, created by Roberta Garibaldi, vice president of the OECD Tourism Committee and food and wine tourism expert, boasts the European record for certified products (Ig): 814 in November 2021, 315 agri-food and 526 wines . A heritage that must be promoted with travel ideas that bring together typical flavors with the beauties of the Belpaese and which will be present at Agri and Slow Travel Expo, at the Bergamo Fair. Review dedicated to slow, active and outdoor tourism, Agri and Slow Travel Expo will make known through the file rouge of food and wine, a slower and more authentic way of traveling, through little-known villages, trekking in nature, historic paths, cycle paths. Without forgetting the possibility of crossing the Italy of taste, from north to south, thanks to the Village of Quality Festivals of Unpli, the Italian Pro Loco Union.

Italy of taste

Italy has an invaluable agri-food and wine heritage. Every Italian region and province has at least one certified production. If Emilia Romagna is at the top of the ranking of certified agri-food products, 47 between DOP, IGP and TSG, Piedmont is the first for number of wines with 59 IG. An immense wealth if we consider that the economic value of certified productions reached 16.6 billion euros in 2020. The change of pace at this point becomes unavoidable. Food and wine, which has always been a tourist attraction in our country, must grow and transform itself, promoting new forms of more experiential and authentic tourism, which lead to getting to know these realities.

Food and wine on the go

Agri and Slow Travel Expo is proposed as a showcase of new travel ideas to get to know the excellent food and wine of our country in a sustainable way. Here thento unusual trekking among the vines, Roads of wine and flavors, which combine the discovery of the territory with that of its products. Or the most beautiful Italian villages awarded with the Touring Club’s Orange Flag. A quality mark that guarantees the certainty of visiting destinations that have a cultural and environmental heritage to be preserved and high-level hospitality services. Places to stop, breathe in history, traditions, food and wine culture.

Without forgetting the paths, such as the Piedmontese section of the Sentiero Italia, which leads from the Ligurian Alps to Lake Maggiore through 66 stages and which at each stop offers the encounter with new tastes that make the places visited unique.

Or spiritual paths and trails, which wind along bucolic landscapes leading to the discovery of hermitages and abbeys to discover the secrets of the monks’ gardens and their recipes handed down over the centuries.

Flavors of Italy at the Village of Quality Festivals

The festivals are an expression of the identity and culture of the territories. Precisely for this reason Unpli, the Italian Pro Loco Union, undertakes to safeguard and promote the most representative ones as a fundamental heritage to be protected. They have always made people discover the values and excellence of the territories that have handed them down over time, saving important traditions and highlighting an indissoluble bond between the territory and its typical products. To date there are 49 Unpli certified quality festivals and many of these will be present at the Village of Quality Festivals of Agri and Slow Travel Expo. A unique opportunity to embark on a journey through the Italy of flavours, from North to South, from the Alps to the islands, to discover little-known excellences and dishes handed down from family to family until they become the symbol of a place.

The Village of Quality Festivals of Unpli will present food and wine itineraries that lead to the discovery of the territories, show cooking in which to savor typical recipes of popular cuisine, appointments and events to mark in the agenda.