Alla Salute! Italy’s Aperitivo Is Back

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/opinion/italy-alcohol.html

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VENICE — My youth was aperitif-free. It was the 1970s and we concentrated on discos, warm beer on the beach, pizza, sleepless nights with friends and a bottle — or more — of cheap wine. We weren’t fussy. Aperitivi — a ritual pre-dinner drink to begin the evening’s imbibing — was for old people: my parents, uncles and aunts, and on holidays, mostly.

But when we had guests, our dining room would miraculously fill with bottles full of brightly colored liquid with funny names: Aperol, Campari, Negroni, Carpano, Fernet Branca. In a television commercial for Cynar, which was artichoke flavored, an actor sipped his aperitif sitting in the middle of a busy roundabout, toasting: “Protects against the wear and tear of modern life!” A popular brand of vermouth was Punt e Mes, meaning “one and a half points” (one point of sweet, half of bitter). At 20, I would have died rather than order a Punt e Mes. No girl would have ever talked to me again.

Aperitivo — the habit of a drink with friends in the early evening — was actually imported from the United States and Britain, which between them dictated most Italian social trends in the first half of the 20th century. In 1963, Paolo Monelli, in his book “Optimus Potor, ossia il vero bevitore” (“The Real Drinker”), wrote: “It has spread rapidly in Italy in the last 30 years, especially after the war, the custom of offering alcoholic beverages made of different ingredients, generally know as cocktails.” Fascism, which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943, hated this foul bourgeois custom of America and England, then its deadly foes, and renamed it bevanda arlecchina (the harlequin beverage) or polibibita (multi-drink). The strategy didn’t work. As soon as Mussolini was out, cocktails — and their names — were back in.

So the 1950s and 1960s were positively soaked in aperitifs, especially among the middle and upper classes. Then came a lull in the ’70s and ’80s, when my rebellious generation preferred travel, music and sex to sitting around with a drink in your hand. But gradually, as we aged, the practice crept back and is now, with a vengeance, taking over the thirsts of a new iconoclastic generation.

In short, aperitivo — to be had from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. — is for everyone and it is everywhere — north and south, cities and holiday resorts, among millennials and, most interestingly, their parents (the grandparents never gave it up).

Italy this summer is one vast bar. Twenty-somethings are discussing their favorite drinks, having wine with their meals and staying away from clubs, which are now in decline. As a result of this trend toward home-based socializing, fatal car accidents involving young people are less frequent. Millennials are drinking more, admittedly, but are driving less under its influence.

Aperitivo has also become the new mainstay of Italian public life. It offers several advantages in restaurants and social gatherings. It doesn’t commit dates, or groups of friends, to spending the whole evening together. It is reasonably priced (from 5 to 10 euros). And it comes in different formats. There is aperitivo rinforzato (enhanced aperitivo), in which drinks, for a little extra money, come with some food; and apericena (aperitivo-cena, or aperitif-with-dinner), in which the drink comes with more food. Young Italians talk increasingly about food pairing (gin and tonic, apparently, goes well with tuna carpaccio). Our older British and American visitors often resent this. They claim aperitifs are to be had straight up, to get the full benefit of their alcoholic punch. They forget that we Italians, as a rule, don’t aim to get drunk; we just want to spend time happily together.

Certain drinks are more popular than others. Prosecco has become the hallmark of late afternoons, just as cappuccino is a must in the mornings (after 11 a.m., Italians consider it immoral, and after a meal, all but illegal). Prosecco is everywhere: a form of liquid democracy that brings together different generations and introduces residents to newcomers. It is also the base for spritz, a widely popular aperitif that originated in the region around Venice. It consists of prosecco, Aperol or Campari (or lately both), and a dash of soda water (the name comes for the German “Spritzen,” to spray). The Trentino region and Franciacorta, in Lombardy, produce an upmarket and much better sparkling wine, but the main brands — Ferrari, Bellavista, Ca’ Del Bosco, Berlucchi — failed to find a common name for it (they’re not allowed to use “champagne,” which France would never surrender), and so they failed to achieve the global dominance of prosecco.

Does that leave contemporary Italy a spritz society based on prosecco populism? Not yet. But not all is quiet on the food and wine front, where Italy is a superpower, alongside France. For sure, more and more politicians pose at their summer outings with a glass in their hand. Where best to witness the newest incarnation of a traditional habit turned modern? Well, you could try Jesolo, which is near Venice and is one of Italy’s busiest seaside resorts, or Milanom Marittima, where Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and populist in chief, recently played disc jockey on the beach with young women in revealing beach garb dancing to the national anthem. Or, perhaps more wisely, you could go to one of the thousands of lively, lovely bars across the cities, beaches, mountains and hills, lake and rivers of Italy.

It would be wrong to provide any more directions. Mario Soldati (1906-1999), the first author to bring food and wine to Italian television, had this to say in one of his short stories (“Il vino di Carema”): “If you want to enjoy Italy — I keep telling my foreign friends — you must discover it on your own, relying on your luck and your instinct, as one of Italy’s great laws is the following: ‘Everything that bears a title, a name, advertising is worth less than what is unknown, hidden, individual.’” I say cheers to that. Or rather, alla salute!

Beppe Severgnini, an editorial writer and editor at Corriere della Sera, writes regularly about Italian and European politics, society and culture.

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