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Issue 728 - April 7th - 11th 2025 - Expressly created for 3698 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | U.S. tariffs are frozen at 10%, for the next 90 days, for countries that sought negotiation, including the EU, after Trump’s measures were announced, with the exception of China, which will have 125% duties imposed. So decided the U.S. president, in an announcement that immediately sent the world stock exchanges soaring, after the collapses of the past few days, and that obviously pleases all the made-in-Italy wine agribusiness organizations, from Federvini to Unione Italiana Vini-Uiv, and beyond. On the other hand, the EU, explains the European Commission, will also suspend the entry into force of reciprocal tariffs scheduled for mid-April, in order to open negotiations ... | |
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| | With fewer customers in stores, and therefore less consumption, in fashion, as in wine, it becomes increasingly important to invest in “Customer Relationship Management”, which means educating them, building their loyalty, giving them something more than just the product tout court, informing them, telling them about the craftsmanship behind it, in order to raise the “average receipt” and hold on to them. With a vision on wine as a sector in which to invest again, because economically there is room to grow, even at a time of crisis that does not mean, moreover, crisis of all companies (at a time when brand strength emerges more and more as a key factor). With no-alcohol wines not too appreciated, if not openly rejected even as an idea, while there is some more opening on low alcohol. And with tariffs seen as one of the many storms that every business, in its life, faces, and which it must overcome in order to look ahead. These are the insights, in a nutshell, that emerged in WineNews interviews at Vinitaly 2025 (in more detail), with two of Italy’s greatest fashion entrepreneurs, at the head of groups with multibillion-dollar turnovers, who have also invested in wine, namely Renzo Rosso, patron of Diesel, who, from Vicenza, has made jeans made in Italy a universal icon, and who is part of Only The Brave Group, the fashion and luxury holding company of which he is founder, and deeply tied to his territory, the hills of Marostica, in the Veneto region, where Diesel Farm, the “wine tailoring”, a great passion of one of the first Italian vip-vignerons, is also located, and who is part of Brave Wine, the holding company dedicated to wine, with capital also in Benanti on Etna and in the Barolo griffe Josetta Saffirio, and Sandro Veronesi, patron of the Oniverse Group, formerly Calzedonia, of which the Signorvino chain of wine shops is also part. And who, in a backward journey from the shelf to the vineyard, is also a wine producer with Oniwines, the La Giuva wineries in Valpolicella, Tenimenti Leone in the Castelli Romani, Podere Guardia Grande in Alghero, and of Villa Bucci, the Verdicchio “pearl” of the Marche region, the Veronesi family’s latest acquisition, and waiting to open a winery in Trentodoc as well (and to make other acquisitions, if the conditions are right). | |
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| | A market that is still a niche, but destined to grow, even in Italy, and to be seen not as “antagonistic” to traditional wine. To do so, it also needs a quick turnaround, demanded by the wine world, to facilitate its production. “Zero alcohol and market expectations”, the focus on stage, in recent days, at Vinitaly 2025, in Verona, with the Unione Italiana Vini-Uiv at the forefront, turned the spotlight on the “No-Lo” (no and low alcohol) market. A global market that is currently worth $2.4 billion and aims to reach $3.3 billion in 2028, according to analysis by the Uiv-Vinitaly Wine Observatory, based on Iwsr data. No and low alcohol is projected to have a Cagr in volume of 7% over the period 2024-2028, as opposed to -0.9% in total wine and +8.1% in value (it is +0.3% total wine) over the same period (in more detail). | |
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| | | A toast in pure Italian style with bubbles from the 2016 Trendoc Ferrari Riserva Lunelli, one of the most prestigious names in sparkling wine making in the Belpaese; then Etna Bianco “Sul Vulcano” Donnafugata, a winery-symbol of Sicilian viticulture; followed by Biancolella d’Ischia “Vigna del Lume” Cantine Mazzella, which originates in a vineyard overlooking the sea; and finally, Moscato Rosa “Pasithea Rosa” from Cantina Girlan, a dessert jewel produced in Oltradige: these are the wines served to King Charles and Queen Camilla at the gala dinner at the Quirinale hosted by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. “Seeing our bottles protagonists of an official entrance, carried by the service staff in the red uniform of great occasions, and then being poured into the glasses for such an important toast, which seals the relations and friendship between two countries, filled us with emotion”, Camilla Lunelli, who was present at the event with her family, tells WineNews. “Even though we have been at home at the Quirinale since Pertini’s time, it was exciting to be here and to meet King Charles III, with whom we had a pleasant conversation”. For the occasion, the Lunelli family presented King Charles with a bottle of Giulio Ferrari Collezione 2004 number 2023, in honor of the year of his coronation. | |
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| | | “It is an operation that Marc de Grazia could have done with anyone, but if he decided to do it with us, and with me in particular, it is because at the base there is a great friendship and a great mutual respect”: thus, Lamberto Frescobaldi, comments, to WineNews, the news of the investment for a significant, but minority share of the historic Tuscan group in Marc De Grazia’s Terre Nere Estate, one of the icons of Etna. A deal whose figures remain confidential, as usual, but whose realistic estimate is between 15 and 20 million euros. | |
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| | While at regular intervals the debate on health risk labels is reignited, the European Commissioner for Health, Olivér Várhelyi, reiterates how the Mediterranean Diet, “healthy and balanced” including the well-known “glass of wine a day” during meals “does no harm”. And he did so from Vinitaly 2025, where he stressed how “food and wine are not only about sustenance and survival, but are also what makes our lives enjoyable”. For Várhelyi, “choosing whether or not to consume a glass of wine with a meal is a personal decision. Studies have shown how wine consumption has beneficial effects on diabetes, cardiovascular disease. It is the right balance that does not prevent longevity”. | |
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| | “We cannot predict what will happen with the tariffs, but we will continue to support great Italian wine that has no substitutes in the States and must be on American tables. Tariffs divide, wine unites”. There is a “sentiment” of hope and confidence in the words of “Wine Spectator,” executive editor Jeffery Lindenmuth and senior editors Alison Napjus and Bruce Sanderson, from OperaWine 2025, the U.S. magazine’s only event outside America, with Veronafiere, and the tasting of the 131 flagship Italian wineries in the States, as a prologue to Vinitaly 2025. | |
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