Italian wine is relatively unknown

Italy did not come out well in a research study in the United States on the recognizability of the world’s leading wine appellations. Only five areas were recognized of which three were regions.

Fabio Piccoli, a wine journalist specialized in the sector’s economic aspects, wrote in Wine Meridian, a web magazine I suggest everyone read, about a study on the American market recently released by the American research group Wine Intelligence. They interviewed a cross-section of regular wine consumers, those who every year buy at least one bottle of wine, to create an index of recognizability of the world’s leading wine appellations.

The findings concerning Italy were not encouraging. Of the 45 areas that were recognized, 18 were French and only five were Italian. Fortunately, Tuscany was second after the Napa Valley, with 60% of those interviewed knowing it. Ninth place was a tie between Sicily and Chianti, thus Tuscany again, with 42% recognizing the wines. Prosecco came in 13th with 37% and Piedmont was 17th with 22%. There was no recognition of Brunello, Barolo, Amarone nor Soave or Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and not even Lambrusco. This was not good news.

The US is Italy’s most important export market and Italy leads, or comes very close to it, in regard to turnover and volume. But knowledge concerning wine producing zones, regions, DOC and DOCG classifications, even the more famous wines, is lacking. It is as if Italian wines are considered to be all the same. Is this the result of over specialization? By the existence of too many different wines and varietals? By the inability to create estate or territorial brands? By the fact that the French are more educational in their promotions and Italians far less? Without a doubt it is a bit of everything.

For example, while Salento is a fairly well-known area, there is only one IGT wine that uses that name, while DOC wines like Nardò, Copertino, Alezio, Squinzano, Terre d’Otranto, Salice Salentino (perhaps the better known), Brindisi, Galatina, Leverano and Matino are little known. These are all excellent wines but very similar between them and this understandably creates problems. If it is true that 90% of Italy’s DOC and DOCG production is from 80 or more appellations and that over 400 cover only 10% of production, then the question is another. The most recognized wine producing regions are Tuscany, Sicily and Piedmont but these are regions and not appellations like Brunello, Etna or Barolo. Although Italian wine lovers and sector operators know these appellations well, outside Italy this is not the case. Just as many Italians do not know where Mortington Peninsula is, foreign wine lovers have no idea where Cilento or Colli di Luni are. If this is the case in the US, Piccoli concluded, where Italian wines are known thanks to the millions of Italo-Americans there and the popularity of Italian restaurants, we can imagine what the situation is in China or South Korea. These are promising and important new markets but where Italian wines are for the most part unknown. And this is something Italian wine producers should be concerned about.