Celebrating Christmas in Milan Style

There is the time of the year when everything looks different.
An enchanting aura envelops every city in the world turning it into a new one.
Milan, the capital of Italian fashion, enhances its allure by wearing its best dress: a shining tree studded with Swarovski crystals adorns the Vittorio Emanuele II Gallery with glittering reflections, violin strings and powerful voices sound out to welcome people to the Scala theatre and a smoky aroma of roasted chestnut fills piazza Duomo with a winter smell in the air. It is no wonder, it is Christmas time.

A short walk away from here, there is a quiet and intimate neighbourhood called Brera, the district of artists, where ladies with captivating glazes, embellished with bright pearls and luxurious fabrics, are waiting to be admired for their reverential splendour. You are in the Brera’s Art Gallery, built in 1776 thanks to Maria Teresa d’Austria, designed to hold collections of exemplary pieces for student education, today it exhibits the greatest masterpieces in the history of art.

Walking along the exhibition hall and looking at portraits showing people dressed in aristocratic drapes and precious lace, you may pause in front of ‘Ritratto di Laura da Pola’ by Lorenzo Lotto, to consider how good those, who created such elegant and detailed clothes, were.
Perhaps we will never know the identity of those tailors, but we can certainly recognise that an aesthetic value has remained throughout the centuries and still lives on fashion designers, who have maintained a sense of beauty that properly characterised all Italian art, in particular during the Renaissance period.

Nowadays in Milan, beauty means fashion, design and well-being.
If you’re looking for somewhere that has all of these then look no further than via Manzoni 31, where sophisticated style and creativity mixed together are the protagonists. In one word: Armani building, the headquarter of Giorgio Armani’s world.

Take the lift to the seventh floor where you can enjoy a spectacular view of the city whilst drinking a glass of fizz served in precious style. This would be a glass of BOLLLICINE, a sparkling wine made with a blend with of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Riesling Rhine, produced thanks to the company’s ‘Le Contrade’, wine experience 3 generations of excellent wine producers since 1925 in Annone Veneto, in the province of Venice.

BOLLLICINE is produced using the Charmat method which involves 40 days of fermentation and 140 days of ageing on lees.
It is organic like all ‘Le Contrade’ wines who, since 1993, have used the rigorous techniques of cultivation in its vineyards in order to offer an extremely genuine wine while guaranteeing the safeguarding of the environment.

The wine is in a 0,75 ml size bottle that is thicker than usual and soft to the touch due to a special alimentary coating.
Also given that the neck of the bottle is shorter, the amount of oxygen is lower, making the ratio between oxygen and wine the same as a magnum bottle. For this reason, it can be considered just like a mini magnum.

Delighted by the wonders of this place, you might try to accompany this wine with a dish dreamed up by Filippo Gozzoli, the Executive Chef of Armani/Ristorante.
An amazing risotto prepared with pumpkin, Blu di Frabosa, a blue cheese from Piedmont, cocoa bean and curry caramelized almonds.
The colours of this combination are highlighted by a warm and intense light that catches your eye. The bouquet from BOLLLICINE recalls a flowery garden.
The crispness of the wine brings out the flavour of the dish, creating a real sense of pleasure.

Would this experience be an unforgettable Christmas present? Maybe so.
Are beauty and goodness values that belong to human nature? Perhaps.
In my opinion, I like to consider beauty as a circle with no start and no end.
It embraces all generations and it is drawn by artists whose talent creates something eternally beautiful, making us dream infinitely.
Just like Christmas that, year in year out, turns every city into a starry one.

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