Jannik Sinner toasts ATP victory with Asti, but Italian newspapers call it 'Champagne'

Italy is the tennis champion – but not of nationalism. “We win at home, we celebrate with an Italian sparkling wine shown worldwide and certified with Sinner’s now-iconic post-match ‘shower’ of Asti Spumante, yet the only ones left with a slightly bitter taste after the triumph at the Nitto ATP Finals are precisely the hundreds of producers who, together with the consorzio, have invested in Italian identity as their winning card.”

Describing this strange kind of Made in Italy self-sabotage is Stefano Ricagno, president of the Asti DOCG Consortium – which has been the sparkling wine partner of the tennis event for five years – commenting on dozens of articles that described Jannik Sinner’s post-match celebrations as a “Champagne shower.”

How to break free from dependence on French wine

Meanwhile, the consorzio – which this year launched orange glasses in honour of the Italian tennis phenomenon – reports that during the week of the Turin tournament alone, 7,000 glasses were sold, reaching an increasingly broad audience of enthusiasts and potential new consumers. A successful wine–tennis partnership, if it weren’t for the “banana peel” on which much of the Italian press slipped. And it’s not the first time.

So, while Sinner has managed to make Italians fall in love with tennis, the road to overcoming the inferiority complex toward French wines is still a long one — at least linguistically. Question: would such a thing ever have happened in France?