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Issue 650 - October 9th - 13th 2023 - Expressly created for 4596 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Antinori, a family par excellence of Italian wine, will directly import its wines to the U.S., with a new “company” created ad hoc, representing the future and named after the history of the longest-lived Italian winery, “Vinattieri 1385”, the certified year of birth of the company, which, over the centuries, became Marchesi Antinori, now in its 26th generation with Albiera, Allegra and Alessia at the helm, with their father and honorary president, Piero Antinori, and CEO Renzo Cotarella. Who, to WineNews, said how “the acquisition of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellar in Napa Valley in June 2023 also opened this door”. | |
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| | We have mentioned several times that the second half of 2023 would be full of obstacles for Italian wine. Moreover, numbers are confirming that there is little room for imagination and hope. ISTAT data on exports - which WineNews analyzes every month - recounted the rapid slowdown in shipments, in value and volume, caused by a globally fragile economic and consumption situation. At the same time, on the production front, initial estimates of the harvest, sometimes premature, have in many cases turned out to be far too optimistic, and will have to be revised downward. It is from these assumptions that one must start to “read” the latest data from the Uiv-Vinitaly Observatory, which outline this 2023 as the most complicated year in the last 20 years. Bad news comes from the current grape harvest, whose estimates, in terms of quantity, look even more downward on what was already anticipated a month ago (-12%) by the Assoenologi, Ismea and Uiv Observatory: particularly in the North, but also in the South, the volumes of grapes harvested are lower than budgeted due to hail events and persistent heat, which dried out the grapes. In contrast, a vintage of excellent quality is expected for many important appellations in Italy, starting with red wines. Despite the scarcity of the product available for the new vintage, Uiv notes, the bulk wine market is at a standstill, with the number of trades at -40% on the average for the period. From international trade come further negative signals: according to the Uiv-Vinitaly Observatory, which has processed the latest customs data on Italian wine exports to the non-EU area for the first 7 months of 2023, the trend has now reached almost double-digit trend decreases in volumes (-9%) and in recession also in values (-6%). Worryingly, the situation in the world’s top market, the United States, which, in the last 4 months, has gone from -4% to -12% in volume. Overall, with the exception of Russia, all the top 12 third-party markets surveyed report declining quantities starting with key outlets such as the UK (-3%), Switzerland (-10%), Canada (-20%), Japan (-16%), Norway (-13%), but also emerging markets such as China (-27%) South Korea (-40%), Australia (-20%) and Brazil (-4%). | |
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| | A difficult vintage from a climatic point of view, with extreme events - prolonged rainfall in late spring and anomalous heat in August, with peaks even at 40 degrees - and the complication of downy mildew, but one that, thanks mainly to the experience and ability of the producers, presents a certainly positive balance, which could reserve excellent surprises from a quality and longevity point of view of the wines. This is the state of the art of the 2023 vintage in Langhe, according to the winemakers of the Deditus Association, which brings together the great families of the territory (Azelia, Cordero di Montezemolo, Sandrone, Michele Chiarlo, Pio Cesare, Poderi Gianni Gagliardo, Poderi Luigi Einaudi, Prunotto and Vietti), who draw an initial balance, while the harvest of Nebbiolo for Barolo is still underway. | |
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| | | Nine out of ten Italians make limited or moderate use of wine and spirits, almost always consumed together with food, according to the Mediterranean lifestyle, where drinking is, first of all, conviviality. And this is also why “Italy can and must be a bridgehead in countering the prohibitionist drift in progress, and institutions can do much to prevent measures that will affect strategic assets of Italian culture”. Message arrived from Federvini’s “Wine Agenda” in recent days in the program of “Milan Wine Week” 2023. In the background, the data of a not too bright market, as told by Mediobanca, Nomisma and Tradelab (in more detail). “Wine is a human heritage, today we are witnessing at the international level a prohibitionist attack that risks damaging a strategic supply chain for our agrifood industry”, commented Micaela Pallini, president of Federvini, “and our response must be fundamentally cultural”. “We have before us considerable global challenges that directly affect the work of companies and our sociality”, said Ettore Nicoletto, vice-president of Federvini Wines Group and president & ceo Angelini Wines & Estates, “Italian wine is an excellence: it must be protected in all venues with firmness, continuity and the support of institutions”. | |
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| | | A business and family history of absolute success, which coincides in good part with that of the success of the wine of Marche, but also of Abruzzo. It is that of Umani Ronchi, a winery led by the Bernetti family, with Michele taking the reins from his father Massimo, and which today is named “Winery of the Year” by Gambero Rosso’s “Guida Vini d’Italia 2024”, the most important in the wine market (officially presented tomorrow, October 15, in Rome), as WineNews is able to anticipate. | |
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| | Famous names of entrepreneurship and high-profile managers, such as Paolo Berlusconi, Alberto Gennarini, Diego Palano, Mattia Riva, but also a private equity company that supports innovative startups and SMEs, iNSQUARED: the club of investors - which now counts 50 “business angels” - that have decided to support the growth of eWibe is still enriched, investing 450,000 euros in the second phase of a capital raising operation that, in all, has reached 700,000 euros, through the subscription of Participatory Financial Instruments. With these new resources, eWibe aims to start a process of internationalization and expansion in Europe. The Italian fine wine live market, from July 2022 to date, has already come to move 10,000 bottles, worth 4 million euros, and more than 7,000 users. | |
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| | 238 “Chiocciole” awarded to wineries that best interpret the values of the Slow Wine, 799 “Top wines”, the best from an organoleptic point of view, selected from 25,100 wines tasted, from 2,006 wineries visited and reviewed, of which 198 were awarded the Bottiglia, and whose wines express excellent quality: these are the numbers of “Slow Wine” 2024, Slow Food’s guide, edited by Giancarlo Gariglio, which urges “the wine lover to understand that all of Italian wine should be enhanced and known, in addition to the usual emblazoned appellations”. | |
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