Angelo Peretti returns to deal with wine from a radically different perspective: that of teetotalers. In fact , his “Manuale di autodifesa per asteteo” (Self-defense manual for teetotalers) has been in bookstores since November 4 , inaugurating the new Pamphlet series by Edizioni Ampelos.
In Italy, those who do not drink wine or other alcoholic beverages, despite representing forty-five percent of the population, are branded as an anomaly. Consequently, they are the object of various prejudices and small or large harassment, often apparently venial, but no less annoying for that: from "you don't know what you're missing" to the unjustified claim that one should only toast with something alcoholic; from the presumption of pregnancy for women who do not drink to the stripping of crystal glasses from places at the table; from the accusation of a lack of empathy towards colleagues during company team building meetings, generally characterized by the offer of alcoholic beverages, to the limited availability of non-alcoholic alternatives in restaurants and banquets. Playing the cards of irony, lightness of writing and more than thirty years of journalistic militancy in the wine sector, in the eighty pages of his pamphlet Angelo Peretti debunks the absurd and gangrenous clichés on the basis of which alcohol drinkers torment, more or less involuntarily, teetotallers. The twenty-one chapters of the booklet take their cue from anecdotes, scientific research, songs, classic texts or writings by modern narrators. The result is a “Self-defense manual for teetotallers” that aims on the one hand to support the reasons of non-drinkers and on the other to help wine drinkers and managers of public places to pay more attention to the rights and expectations of teetotal diners, with the intent of improving mutual personal relationships, the quality of service and the pleasure of a convivial evening.
The cover image was created by Elisa Costa for the Labeldesign studio.
