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Issue 680 - May 6th - 10th 2024 - Expressly created for 4765 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Among the now many wineries that support and promote projects and links with the arts, Ca’ del Bosco, a Franciacorta star led by Maurizio Zanella, is one of the absolute pioneers, both in Italy and worldwide. One of those that “set the standard”, as early as the 1970s. And in recent days it has decreed the winner of the first edition of the “Ca’ del Bosco Sculpture Prize”, born in 2023 and reserved for large outdoor sculptures created by Italian artists under 40. Namely, artist Irene Coppola with the work “Handandland”, a poetic trace in blown neon on the outdoor steps of the winery’s production area. | |
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| | The decline in wine consumption, in Italy and much of the world, is there for all to see. For many reasons. There is the big issue of healthism, which also includes the effect of alarmist messages not only against abuse, but also against simple moderate consumption. There is the aspect of generational change, with Millennials not as loyal to wine as the Boomers, and with younger people, such as Gen Z, who not only no longer drink like their predecessors, but also do not approach “the table” in the same way either, increasingly focusing on aperitifs and other moments of conviviality and consumption, where they drink with increasing frequency beverages other than wine, such as cocktails, ready-to-drink and others. There is the economic issue with diminished purchasing power for many, and which also often clashes with the huge mark-ups, now as high as +500%, that some restaurants make on wine prices, making their purchase and consumption almost prohibitive. There is the climatic aspect, which, on the one hand, pushes consumption toward lighter, less alcoholic, and cooler wines, and, on the other hand, creates the conditions for which, with today’s viticulture and oenology, wines, on the other hand, have higher and higher alcohol contents. These are all elements of a complex problem, that of declining wine consumption, which, in order to be managed, will require important interventions from a cultural, communicative, as well as agronomic and enological point of view. An extreme summary of the contents of the speech, to WineNews, by Gianni Moriani, a historian of Italian cuisine and agrarian landscape, former professor at the Catholic University of Rome and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where he created the Master in Food and Wine Culture, at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan, where he held the Course on “Construction of Italian Identity in Cuisine” in the Master in Philosophy of Food and Wine, as well as author of books, including “Man is what he drinks. A history of drinking, from spirits to caffeinates” (Cierre Edizioni), and editor of the great philosopher Tullio Gregory's book, the “Gastronomic Eros. In Praise of Identitarian Traditional Cooking, Against Anonymous Creative Cooking” (Editori Laterza). An intervention that we receive and gladly publish (in more detail). | |
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| | Vineyards also go to auction. In Italy, in 2023, 244 lots ended up under the gavel for a countervalue of as much as 66,648,711 euros, as shown by the analysis carried out by the Centro Studi Astasy Analytics of Npls Re_Solutions realized thanks to the “Auction System” system that allows banks and servicers to feed up-to-date data regarding real estate executions and to clusterize, as in this case, the various types of assets at auction. A significantly lower number, reflecting an industry that is regaining strength and determination, than in 2019, when 1,142 vineyard lots ended up at auction, representing an auction base value of 250 million euros. The largest number of lots for sale is concentrated in Sicily (48), then Puglia (34) and Tuscany (27), with the latter leading, however, by value, with 24.5 million euros. | |
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| | | It is still far too early for Bordeaux 2023 “En Primeur” campaign to make its indirect effects felt on the fine wine secondary market. Where to signal an attempt at redemption in a diffusely negative context, it seems to be only Italy. According to the Liv-Ex data for April 2024, analyzed by WineNews, of all the main indexes, in fact, the only one in positive in the last month, and basically back to the levels of the beginning of the year, is the Italy 100, which makes +0.7% month on month, and -0.2% since the beginning of 2024. An important signal, from the only positive index on the platform. The Liv-Ex 100, the benchmark index, does -1.3% in April and -2.3% since the beginning of the year The Liv-Ex 1000 does -0.7% in April and -4.7% in 2024, and among the worst indexes, in 2024, are the Burgundy 150, at -7%, but also the Champagne 50 at -3.8%. An overall negative trend, involving all of the last two years. Among the individual wines in the Italy 100, the one that has grown the most since the beginning of the year, with an important +23.3%, is Bruno Giacosa’s Barolo Le Rocche del Falletto di Serralunga d’Alba Riserva 2000, ahead of Solaia 2013, Masseto 2018 and Sassicaia 2017, in double digits.
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| | | Always a symbol of man’s intricate journey through life, with more or less religious significance, the “labyrinth”, in the Renaissance, exploded as an ornament and playful pastime in the gardens and palaces of the most noble and wealthy families. And today, among the vineyards of Lazio, it becomes a work of “land art”. With the “Limito” project, in Marco Carpineti’s Tenuta Antoniana, which announces itself as “the world’s largest labyrinth vineyard”, and will be officially unveiled on June 6.
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| | The European Commission has published its latest report on the short-term outlook for EU agricultural markets in 2024 , which also outlines the state of the art on the 2023-2024 wine year that is coming to a close. A complicated picture, but it was already known, which sees Italy “black jersey” at the quantity level with a sharp decline that will lead it to lose its leadership to France. Production, at a general level, is expected to decline further (-10% year-on-year, -8% below the five-year average), to 143 million hectoliters, the lowest figure since 2017-2018 and this is due to significant decreases that occurred precisely in Italy (-23%), but also in Spain (-21%), despite an increase in France (+8%) and Portugal (+11%). | |
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| | More and more great French winemakers are finding homes in prestigious Italian wineries. Like Eric Boissenot, one of Bordeaux’s stars, son of Jacques Boissenot, right-hand man of Émile Peynaud, and former consultant to four of Bordeaux’s five Premier Crus - Latour, Lafite-Rothschild, Margaux and Mouton-Rothschild - who signs the new wines of Tenuta Fratini, the latest entrepreneurial venture of Corrado and Marcello Fratini, from the famous Florentine fashion family in the Bolgheri land they fell in love with (the story in more detail).
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