Is the party over?

Corriere Vinicolo is a publication very close to Unione Italiana Vini, Italy’s largest wine producers’ association, and is for the wine world what Il Sole 24 Ore is for the financial community. It is read mostly by people in the business who are interested in the prospects for and polices related to Italian wine and it often has interesting reports that can be, at the same time, disturbing. One of the latest of these came out a few days ago and regarded a 4.9% year-on-year drop in exports of Italian wine in May. This was not good news and became even worse when compared to similar data from Italy’s direct competitors with Spain seeing an increase of 1.2%, Australia one of 2.7% and France of 0.4%. This not to mention Chile (+4.7%) and New Zealand (+9.8%). What caused this decline? More than likely a combination of factors including a hike in prices and the difficulty many consumers have in differentiating between the many different Italian wines. Then there is the fragmentation of production divided among tens of thousands of wineries that have an average of 1.2 hectares of vineyards each (half the average in France, ed.note.) which makes it difficult for them to gain access to export markets, especially in the New World. Despite this apparent and disturbing trend reversal, our politicians, who boasted about ”excellence” during the boon years without really knowing what they are talking about, are not saying anything and are, I suspect, are clueless. What can be done? The first thing is to invest in ‘education’. In other words, explain the complexity of Italian wines through courses, conferences, lessons and guided tastings. I remember how over 30 years ago I learned a lot about French wine through the ‘fiches’’ or leaflets dedicated to the various winemaking areas that Sopexa, the wine promotion agency, distributed everywhere including supermarkets so everyone could consult them. This is obviously just an example and not a magic wand. However, except for some rare exceptions, including the collaboration between the National Wine Tasters’ Organization (ONAV) and the University of Beijing, there are not many initiatives in this direction either by the competent government authorities or the Foreign Trade Institute (ICE). Only Vinitaly, for now, seems to be trying to do something. The bottom line is that we need to inform consumers about Italian wine, go beyond simple commercial initiatives that are useful but not enough because the first signs that the party is over are right before our eyes.