If this message is not displayed correctly click here |
Issue 695 - August 19th - 23rd 2024 - Expressly created for 4825 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
|
|
| | | There are two young Italians among the “Future 40 Tastemakers 2024” selected by the “Wine Enthusiast” team, “people who deserve to be recognized for their work in advancing the sector”. Giulia Cecchi, born and raised among the vineyards of her parents’ estates in Chianti Classico, Famiglia Cecchi, led by Andrea Cecchi (with her brother Cesare, ed.) and Castello di Monsanto, owned by her mother Laura Bianchi, and brand ambassador of the two estates. And Francesca Bardelli Nonino, “the grappa influencer” and the sixth generation of the historic Nonino dynasty, led by Giannola Nonino, with Antonella, Cristina and Elisabetta Nonino (in more detail). | |
|
| | The earliest grape varieties, from Sicily to the Central and Northern Regions of Italy, are in the wine cellars, especially for sparkling wine bases, which are now produced in a great variety of styles and vines, just about everywhere in Italy. Since the large territories that produce Italian sparkling wines are concentrated mostly in the North, between Piedmont and Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige, Lombardy and Veneto, they have been the first to be harvested at the “district” level. These territories are important from an identity as well as economic point of view, because bubbles (and white wines) are growing on the market average, in Italy, and are now worth over a quarter of exports in value (885.1 million euros in the first 5 months of 2024, + 9.1%, of the total 3.2 billion euros of Italian wine exports in the period, up 4.9%, according to the Italian statistics institute, ISTAT data, analyzed by WineNews). Furthermore, the situation appears very good almost everywhere, and the harvest forecasts are excellent in terms of quality, and also quantity, even though there are a few exceptions. Officially kicking off, it was Lombardy. First with Franciacorta, which began cutting grapes in the start of the week of Ferragosto, with very good expectations from producers, as reported by the Franciacorta Consortium, led by Silvano Brescianini, with an average production load and good health status of the grapes. Still in Lombardy, the harvest has also started in Oltrepò Pavese, with Pinot Noir, the area’s iconic grape variety, and Chardonnay. And while the harvest will see a -30% drop in grapes on average due to bad weather and too much rain, Coldiretti reports, good quality is expected, especially for whites and sparkling wine bases. Then, the grape harvest for TrentoDoc, the iconic mountain bubbles of Trentino wine, has also started. As witnessed by Ferrari Trento, one of the area’s iconic wineries. And harvest is also under way in Alta Langa, Piedmont, with healthy grapes and quantities expected to be average to date. While there will be a few more days to wait in the Asti area, to remain in Piedmont, and in the Prosecco Doc and Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Docg appellations (in more detail). | |
|
| | If in Italy, large-scale distribution slows down in volume, while some more positive signs come from exports in the first 5 months of 2024, as Circana and Istat data say, analyzed by WineNews, the reading of the out-of-home sector in Italy, a channel that is always very important, and which, especially in summer, takes the lead thanks to tourism, is more varied. And here, there are those who see little positive, and those who point to a growth in sales, especially thanks to the high-end wines on which they focus their business, and often foreign, Champagne in the lead. Extreme simplification, which comes from WineNews interviews (in more detail) with the top executives of some of the most important high-end distribution companies in Italy, such as Marcello Meregalli (Gruppo Meregalli), Carlo Alberto Sagna (Sagna), and Luca Cuzziol (Cuzziol Grandi Vini and Società Excellence). | |
|
| | | For years, and we too have been writing about it for some time, in the daily chronicles as well as in the territorial monographs of “I Quaderni di WineNews” (emblematic is the title of the latest May 2024 issue, “Chianti Classico? A really good wine”), Chianti Classico is considered one of the healthiest territories in Italian and world wine. Today, the wines of the appellation have a recognized quality and typicality, and an elegance that meets the tastes of today’s consumers. This is recognized by the market and acknowledged by world critics. This is also testified to by the benchmark in fine wine, the Liv-Ex, which explicitly speaks of “Underrated Chianti Classico”. According to whose analysis (in more detail), the most emblazoned labels could represent the new “blue chips” for investors. And in particular, the Gran Selezione, partly because of the arrival of sub-areas on the label. Compared to other Italian wines, Liv-Ex explains, Chianti Classico Gran Selezione has 58% better average scores, but is 54% cheaper than the same. With Chianti Classico wines “generally representing better value than their Tuscan counterparts in Brunello di Montalcino, as well as Piedmont’s Barolo and Barbaresco”. | |
|
| | | Maria Canabal, journalist, writer and personality of the female universe of food & wine; Alessandro Regoli and Irene Chiari, founders of the website WineNews; “Linea Verde,” a historic program of “Rai 1,” for the episode “The Jewels of the Land of Siena”; Loredana Sottile and Gianluca Atzeni of “Trebicchieri” of “Gambero Rosso”: these are the winners of the “Casato Prime Donne” 2024 Award, edition No. 23. The ceremony will be staged on September 14 in Montalcino, coinciding with the start of the Brunello harvest. | |
|
| | Among the many territories that have begun to harvest their first grapes or are still waiting to kick off the 2024 harvest are also the two largest appellations of all: that of Chianti Docg, for red wines, with its 15,500 hectares of vineyard, an average of 100 million bottles produced each year, where a harvest of large volumes is not expected, but of optimal quality, and that of the Doc delle Venezie, or the most important territory in the world for Pinot Grigio (with the first grape quotations confirming, against the trend, a slight but significant increase in value), which puts together 27,000 hectares of rows, from which 230 million bottles are born each year, on average, of the best-selling Italian still white wine in the world. And it is precisely in the great white wine appellation that the harvest has kicked off in these hours. | |
|
| | With some of Italy, especially in the South, is already in harvest, in the wineries of Italy, as of July 31, 2024, there were 39.6 million hectoliters of wine (-13.1% over the same figure for 2023) and 2.5 million hectoliters of must (-28%), in addition to 37,087 hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation (-16.7%). Thus is the latest edition of the “Cantina Italia” report No. 8 of 2024, published on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture, and compiled by Icqrf on data from the computerized winery registry. A figure that is in line with the production volume of the poor 2023 vintage. | |
|
|
|
