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Issue 473 - May 18th - 22nd 2020 - Expressly created for 11.897 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world |
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The passion for wine is stronger, because the desire to drink it in the world has never passed. The future on the fundamental markets, from where we stopped, but never completely with online sales and especially direct-to-consumer sales that have made a difference; and in the world catering that has stopped, leaving a huge void and making feel all its economic weight, but also social and cultural; but also events, which will start again. It’s the James Suckling-thought, face to face with the director of WineNews, Alessandro Regoli, on the post-Covid19. A key element, communication, which, for the distances still to be maintained, is and will be fundamental. |
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In the Coronavirus scenario, agri-food industry is in a rather complicated situation. Yet, once again, Italian agriculture, and wine & food confirmed their skill in going against the trend. And, in the first 4 months of 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, total exports on non-EU markets have grown +3.7% over the same period in 2019, for a value of 3.35 billion euros, while wine exports took the lead, at +3.3%, and a value of 1.03 billion euros. These data are from customs, analyzed by Confagricoltura, Italy’s largest organization of agricultural enterprises. “The data can be explained very simply: Made in Italy is an extraordinary driver. Everyone, all over the world wants to eat Italian, and in the last 10 years, the value of Italian exports globally, has doubled. The fact that there has been growth in third countries even in the lockdown months is an very positive sign in the extremely negative context agriculture is experiencing”, Massimiliano Giansanti, president of Confagricoltura, explained to WineNews. The numbers of the overall growth in exports should be examined in greater detail. For instance, in January 2020 in the USA, which is the number one market for Italy, the race for stocks of wine had a great impact on wine. In January, exports grew +24% overall, however in February, March and April they registered negative percentages, between -1.6% and -2.7%. It was a slowdown, therefore, but not a total collapse. In the meantime, other sectors – grains, vegetables, pasta and baked goods, have experienced constant and vigorous growth. The game is not over yet, however. “Our wineries are more exposed in exports and the on trade channel, while other countries have kept significant space where they are present in large-scale distribution channels. Now we must reflect on how to re-launch the agro-food sector in Italy and mainly on foreign markets, which are key. They are, in fact, worth 45 billion euros, and 40% are non-EU; therefore, we must do everything possible to save and maintain market shares, which will be the starting point for the future. We will have to ensure that companies, wine and others, can quickly return to the markets when they restart. Even remodelling the tools for promotion” (the complete interviews in-depth analysis). |
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Italy is the protagonist of the first fine wine auction hosted in Hong Kong since the beginning of the year, staged in the former British colony and signed by Gelardini & Romani and Finarte, able to bring under the hammer 752 lots, with 94% of the catalog, in value, assigned, for a total of 550,000 euros collected. Boom of Sangiovese and Nebbiolo among the Italian lots, with 12 bottles of Barbaresco Crichet Pajé 2010 from Roagna (8,800 euros), three magnums of Masseto (5,800 euros), three bottles of Brunello Riserva 1955 Biondi Santi at 4,940 euros (+133% on auction basis), two magnums of Sassicaia (1985 and 1997) at 4. 600 euros, 6 bottles of Barolo Ca Morisso 2010 by Giuseppe Mascarello, at 3,900 euros, 12 bottles of Amarone della Valpolicella by Dal Forno (3,200 euros) and the magnum of Brunello di Montalcino 1983 by Case Basse (Soldera), at 2,250 euros. |
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Sustainability is of primary importance because it is in the nature of Sicilian wine (the largest organic vineyard in Italy), to look to the future. The present, instead, is all about the exponential growth of the Sicily brand, today the seventh most famous denomination in the world on a strategic market like, for example, the USA, as well as its territorial denominations, which more and more often also put “Sicily on the label” (+11%, while the bottled DOC Sicily, at 95 million bottles, makes +19% on 2018, ed.). With a Foundation dedicated precisely to the theme of sustainability, on the axis Assovini - Consorzio Doc Sicilia. All this while the Sicilian wineries (back from a 2019 harvest of 4.3 million hectoliters and of great quality) are also coming to terms with the Covid-19 crisis and the blockade of catering in Italy and around the world, consoling themselves, while waiting for a new start, of a limited drop in sales: -11%, on the general -40% of Italian wine. This is the summary framework that comes from the webinar, signed by Assovini, in the days when “Sicilia en Primeur n. 17” was to be staged. In a Sicily of wine and food that, as told by many producers (from Tasca d’Almerita to Donnafugata to Cottanera, for example) and by chefs like Pino Cuttaia (La Madia and president of “Le Soste di Ulisse”) works together with its future. |
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Finance is strongly focused on wine: the Clessidra fund of Carlo Pesenti (already active in the agri-food sector with Caffè Borbone and the Capitelli delicatessen), would aim to acquire the majority of Botter, one of the leading companies in Prosecco and beyond, with a turnover of 217 million euros in 2019 (+20 million on 2018), and an export share of over 95%. A deal that could be around 330 million Euros, but which, according to other estimates, would be around a more “realistic” figure, and still very high, between 200 and 230 million Euros. |
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Departing from Romania to Italy, with the right documents, but blocked at the border with Hungary. And so, after two weeks and a lot of bureaucracy, a private jet arrived to take them to the vineyards of South Tyrol to work. It was hired by the famous Hofstätter winery, which needed these historic employees of the company for highly specialized work. An extreme and very expensive gesture, also dictated by the fact that other workers in the area contacted “to give it a try after two hours they left because the work was too hard,” says Martin Foradori Hofstätter. One of the many unique stories of this pandemic era. |
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Solidarity starts in the vineyards and “travels by bus”. The meeting between the Le Morette farm of Peschiera del Garda (which produces, among others, Bardolino and Lugana) and the bus and coach rental company Peschiera Viaggi, which was out of work, was born from the need not to stop and to find a solution to the lack of workers. One of the many extraordinary stories that, more than ever in these difficult times, come from the world of wine. |
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