It's no mystery: Italian products are some of the most popular on tables all over the world, and there are many people who choose them above all to serve on the table during the Christmas holidays.
It is our neighbors who prefer Made in Italy - France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and further on Sweden - but in recent years very important numbers have also been recorded in the markets of the United States, Canada and China.
But what are the most loved (and exported) products?
Let's find out it.
Spumante and Prosecco
Italian bubbles are a flagship recognized globally. Apart from the pandemic, which inevitably led to a period of closure of restaurants and bars, in recent years exports have seen a significant increase on many markets, even beating the famous champagne and climbing on the well-deserved podium.
But what is the difference between the two? Spumante, being a category of wines, can be produced in any area and with any grape variety. Prosecco, on the other hand, can be DOC or DOCG, and therefore produced only in some areas of Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, from specific vines, and only with the Charmat method. To obtain a sparkling wine, a second fermentation is necessary in order to capture the carbon dioxide inside the bottle, creating the bubbles. The Charmat method requires that the second fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks and not in the bottle. The result is a fresh and aromatic wine, with lower production costs and immediately ready to drink.
Panettone
Could this deliciously Italian specialty be missing? With excellent performances in Europe, the USA and Australia, the dessert from Milan records numerous successes every year, thanks to its goodness and as the maximum expression of the Italian pastry art.
Objects of desire for gourmands, traditionalists and even avant-gardists, panettone has increasingly become a Christmas must (and sometimes not only, given the seasonal adjustment chosen by some pastry chefs). The choices can be infinite and imaginative: from the classic Milanese panettone to the most original and experimental interpretations, from the beloved pistachio panettone and chocolate panettone, to limited editions.
Ham and Cotechino
Italian hams and cotechino are considered delicacies for the taste, quality and tradition behind them, also recognized abroad.
The cotechino is the forerunner par excellence of any cured meals: keeping the remains of pork inside the casings of the same animal is an ancient expedient that allowed food to be preserved in a lasting way, so that nothing of such a precious and relatively rare element like red meat had to be thrown away.
The preparation of the cotechino, like other salamis, took place in the winter months and was typical of poor areas, whose communities had large families and for most of the year did not have rich and nutritious foods available.
The cotechino is highly energetic and was prepared by the peasant families themselves, each of which worked it in its own way, following recipes, rituals and habits handed down from generation to generation, thus constituting an intangible heritage of different specialties for each family.
Caviar
Among the foods, it is one of the most precious in the world, a symbol of gastronomic luxury often associated with distant countries. Appreciated by those who seek refinement in flavours, caviar is the result of processing sturgeon roe, fish of prehistoric origin which, until the end of the 1970s, inhabited the waters of the Po in the Po Valley, before pollution would lead to near extinction.
Today the sturgeon (whose meat is also eaten, often preserved in fillets in extra virgin olive oil) is a protected species, and it is therefore possible to fish it only in farms, which are also present in large quantities in our area.
Italy is the second largest producer of caviar in the world, thanks above all to companies that have focused on aquaculture, the true pride of our country: we boast the largest farms on the planet, located among the protected natural parks of a centre-north with particularly favorable soil and climatic conditions, where it is possible to use clear spring and resurgence waters in a natural and controlled way.
The reference markets for this product are many, the largest of which are the USA, Japan, Russia and Singapore.
