Known to wine enthusiasts for one of the world’s best known annual wine fairs, Vinitaly, Verona is about to host a multi-functional wine museum and visitor centre that promises to rival similar enterprises in Bordeaux and Porto.

The Museo del Vino (MuVin) project was exposed at Vinitaly 2022, with the endorsement of Italian tourism minister Massimo Garavaglia, Roberta Garibaldi of Italy’s national tourism agency, and Prof Diego Begalli, director of the department of business economics at the University of Verona and Enrico Corsi of Veneto’s Regional Council, who promoted and developed the idea behind the project.

MuVin project is an ambitious €50 million museum, visitor and exhibition centre that will be suitably positioned in Verona’s Gallerie Mercatali. The site is just opposite the city’s exhibition quarter, which is active all year long offering tradeshows, including Vinitaly itself.

Corsi affirmed that: ‘Clearly the museum will rely on the huge number of people who already visit the area, including some 32 million tourists who go to Lake Garda every year, as well as 3.8 million who visit Verona, plus everything else happening in the region. Needless to say, Verona’s numerous exhibitions will benefit us with additional visitors too. This will be Italy’s largest museum dedicated to wine, it will be the country’s main hub for enotourism and will also have an international scope.’

The Gallerie Mercatali, once home to Verona’s horticultural market, cover a land area of nearly 20,000sqm. MuVin’s museum area itself will cover about 5,400sqm, with the remaining surface dedicated to complimentary activities. Indeed, MuVin will also feature an experiential “path” of nearly 5,800sqm that will take visitors on a journey of discovery, touching on themes such as the history of wine, viticulture, wine production, the impact of climate change on winegrowing, and wine and food pairing.

The structure is going to offer educational activities too, with wine lovers welcomed to learn wine tasting techniques as well as conduct virtual visits to wineries and UNESCO heritage vineyards in augmented reality rooms.

The MuVin complex will host temporary exhibitions showcasing both Italian and international wines in addition to cultural initiatives – all with a wine angle – such as contemporary art, music, literature and cinema.

‘There will also be a wine and food market, eateries (a concept pioneered by the Eataly business model), a large wine cellar, a conference centre, and a wine auction room,’ added Corsi, ‘as well as a WebTV, and room to showcase other important Italian products that wine enthusiast love, such as vinegar, spirits and olive oil.’

A MuVin Foundation will be responsible for supervising the project’s development and will be eventually in charge of managing the museum. ‘The Foundation will officially kick off the project. It has attracted the interest of several local councils, trade bodies, consortiums, businesses, wineries, which will all be welcomed to join in,’ said Corsi. ‘We expect MuVin to be ready by 2026, when Northern Italy will host the next Winter Olympics Milano-Cortina.’

After a nine-month police pursuit across Europe, a former Mexican beauty queen and ‘Miss Earth’ competitor has been arrested over the now-infamous €1.6 million theft of wine bottles from a Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain.

When a ‘couple’ operated a meticulously planned wine robbery last year, stealing 45 bottles of wine including an 1806 Château d’Yquem from Atrio, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Spain, police said it had all the trademarks of professional job.

Spanish officials said the theft had been calculated with “millimetric” detail. It was revealed that the ‘couple’ had visited the restaurant three times to plan the theft before undertaking the robbery.

According to El Pais, one of those arrested is a 29-year-old Mexican beauty queen who competed in pageants in her home country. Her accomplice is described as a 47-year-old “Romanian-Dutch” male. It is believed that the 29-year-old woman checked into the hotel using a false Swiss passport before being joined by her accomplice.

The couple dined in the restaurant before requesting a tour of the wine cellar.

The woman later distracted a member of staff by requesting more food after the kitchen had closed, while the man made his way to the wine cellar, used a master key to enter, and made off with three backpacks full of highly valuable wine.

The names of the pair have not been released by police and the wine has still not been recovered, according to Atrio’s sommelier and co-owner, José Polo.

“That bottle was part of my personal history, almost part of me, of the history of Atrio, but also of Caceres, of its citizens, of wine lovers all over the world,” Polo said in a statement to local media, referring to the stolen 1806 Château d’Yquem.

The pair exited the hotel at 5.30am the following, leaving no forensic evidence of their visit to the hotel. They left Spain a few days later, and were pursued across Europe by police until they were identified by Croatian border guards as they attempted to cross from Montenegro.

The investigation remains open.

Wildfires continue in the Gironde region near the southwestern French city of Bordeaux, destroying some 7,300 hectares of forest in four days, with firefighters still unable to stop the blazes. Firemen fighting the two forest blazes which have been raging in the Gironde region say the situation remains extremely difficult. One thousand men and nine water-bombing aircraft are involved in the struggle to contain the twin fires. In the forest known as Teste-de-Buch, near Arcachon, several dwelling and restaurants have been destroyed. In the Landiras region, south of the city of Bordeaux, 4,200 hectares of forest have already been lost and 480 people had to be evacuated during the night. In total, nearly 11,000 people, most of them holiday makers in campsites, have had to flee the two regions of Arcachon and Landiras since the beginning of the crisis earlier this week. Tourist attraction the Dune de Pilat, Europe’s highest sand dune, was closed to visitors after several thousands were evacuated from local campsites this week.