Feeling Blue in 2020?
Since 2000, the Pantone Color Institute has selected and featured a Color of the Year. This year, the honor went to Pantone 19-4052 aka Classic Blue. Offering insights for their color choice, the Pantone website states:
Instilling calm, confidence, and connection, this enduring blue hue highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era.
Well played, Pantone. You foresaw the new era before most of us did.
As we Americans, unfortunately, aren’t going anywhere this summer, I thought I would give us some Italian travel inspiration based on this particular shade of blue. Bonus: I’ve included a wine pairing for each!
Lake Distict
Lombardy
Lake Como
Lombardy is home to Italy’s Lake District, which includes five major lakes—Como, Lugano, Maggiore, Iseo and Garda—as well as smaller ones. The Old World elegance of this region is as much of a draw as the vast stretches of classic blue-shaded water that you can dip into or cruise around by private boat. I have a soft spot for Lake Garda, which delineates Lombardy from its neighbor, the Veneto, and is almost always included on my Veneto Wine + Culture Tour. However, all of the lakes offer stunning settings and soothing vibes.
Wine pairing: Lugana DOC
A crisp white wine that will accompany lake trout dishes.
Scrovegni Chapel, Padua
Veneto
This small chapel in Padua, a 30-minute drive from Venice, contains an important masterpiece of Western art and hymn to the color blue: a fresco cycle by the proto-Renaissance artist and architect known mononymously as Giotto. Completed between 1303 and 1305, the cycle depicts the life of Jesus and the Virgin Mary in splendid detail. (It includes one of the most beautifully-rendered teardrops I have ever seen in a painting—speaking of feeling blue!) The sky of each scene as well as the star-studded, vaulted ceiling are all a bright blue, which Giotto made out of lapis lazuli aka ultramarine. Restored less than 20 years ago and now carefully monitored, the colors are zesty and saturdated—as if they were painted yesterday!
Wine pairing: Manzoni Bianco
Vibrant and structured just like Giotto’s frescoes, this grape was created at the nearby oenology school by Professor Luigi Manzoni when he crossed Riesling and Pinot Bianco.
Azure Trail, Cinque Terre
Liguria
This blue-monikered, seaside trail is the shortest path between the five towns of Cinque Terre. The famous Path of Love—an especially beautiful 1 km stretch between two of the five terre, Riomaggiore and Manarola—is part of the Azure Trail. The breathtaking watery vistas will change, of course, depending on climactic conditions, but Cinque Terre’s mostly rocky coastline provides a darker backdrop to the Tyrrhenian Sea thereby offering a blue that’s more classic than Caribbean.
Wine pairing: Cinque Terre Bianco DOC
A refreshing, local white blend of mostly Vermentino and Albarola that mingles harmoniously with the Mediterranean views and Ligurian pesto!
Gondola Covers, Venice
Veneto
One of the more iconic photos of Venice is a line of gondolas docked in front of the Doge’s Palace. In the evening, with tourists either back on the mainland or settling into a restaurant, the majority of gondoliers end their day, parking their sleek black vessels and protecting the decadent interiors with a blue covering. Like the canals of Venice, the color is an ever-shifting shade, but just around sunset, as the sky slips into something more comfortable, the gondola covers seem to reflect a perfect Pantone 19-4052.
Wine pairing: Prosecco Surlie
This beefier version of prosecco due to the yeasts that remain in the bottle pairs great with a cicchetto or two (Venetian small bites).
(Check out my favorite wine bars in Venice here.)
Blue Flag Beaches
All over Italy
Every year, the Foundation for Environmental Education awards Blue Flag certification to beaches all over the world that meet their strict standards for water quality and sustainability. Italy, with its extensive coastline and two major Mediterranean islands, is home to over 340 Blue Flag beaches—one of the top five countries for Blue Flag beaches in the world (Spain has been number 1 since 1987). As seen above, the flag shows the symbol of a wave on a bright classic blue background. Before you take a trip to Italy, check out this map to see if there is a Blue Flag beach or two near where you’re going!
Wine pairing: Aperol Spritz
Ok, techinically a cocktail, but, on a hot summer day, nothing goes better with the blue sea than a complimentary-colored Aperol Spritz!
(Learn more about the fascinating history of the Spritz here.)
A Blue Flag Beach in Italy
Do you know what else Pantone said about Classic Blue?
Imprinted in our psyches as a restful color, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue brings a sense of peace and tranquility to the human spirit, offering refuge. Aiding concentration and bringing laser like clarity, PANTONE 19-4052 Classic Blue re-centers our thoughts. A reflective blue tone, Classic Blue fosters resilience.
Cheers to that!
Even if “feeling blue” means to feel sad, sometimes it is the low lows that help guide us back to where we should be. May you all find tranquility and strength during this tough period. Hang in there everyone!
Le Due Sorelle Beach, Puglia
Looking for ways you can feel like traveling without leaving home?
La Dolce Vigna has put together a free list of 25.
Check them out here.
(You’ll feel better after, we promise!)
About Leslie Rosa, Author
Ciao! I am a sommelier and Founder of La Dolce Vigna, a boutique wine + culture tour company offering small group and private trips to Italy, Argentina and California. My tours impart a full sense of place through family-run and historic wineries, regional cuisine, stunning natural scenery, charming hotels, and, of course, colorful characters! When not leading tours, you can find me entertaining customers at pop-up wine tastings in the Bay Area, writing for Slow Wine Guide and Wine Tourist Magazine, getting lost someplace beautiful with my watercolor set and maybe even dancing tango!