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Issue 752 - September 22nd - 26th 2025 - Expressly created for 3680 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | In Valpolicella, one of Italy’s most important wine-producing areas, wine generates an estimated €600 million in local business. Thanks to the work of local businesses and the value of “collective brands” such as “Valpolicella Ripasso”, “Amarone”, “Amarone della Valpolicella” and “Recioto della Valpolicella”, which until now have been owned by the Verona Chamber of Commerce and will soon come under the aegis of the Consorzio Vini Valpolicella. This formal but also substantial transition was presented to the Prefecture of Verona, with, among others, the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso. | |
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| | For every 100 bottles of Champagne sold worldwide, more than 5 are uncorked in Italy. This is because, for years, Italy has been one of the leading markets for France’s great sparkling wines, ranking fifth in 2024, with 8.4 million bottles imported worth €235 million (data: Comité Champagne). Many of these bottles arrive in Italian restaurants and bars through the distributors of Excellence Sidi, a company led by Luca Cuzziol, which brings together 21 of the most representative and prestigious import and distribution companies in Italy (from Sagna to Gruppo Meregalli, from Cuzziol GrandiVini to Pellegrini, from Balan to Sarzi Amadè, Vino & Design to Teatro del Vino, Proposta Vini to Bolis, Les Caves de Pyrene to Premium Wine Selection Pws, Ghilardi Selezioni to Visconti43, Première to Agb Selezione, Philarmonica to Spirits & Colori, ViteVini to Apoteca, to Ceretto Terroirs), which in 2024 had a combined turnover of €327.4 million. They are now preparing for one of their main events, the 2025 Champagne Experience, which will be held on October 5 and 6, for the first time (after many editions in Modena) in Bologna. With BolognaFiere, therefore, partnering with Excellence Sidi for Champagne, in addition to its partnerships with Slow Wine and Slow Food for Slow Wine Fair and Sana Food (February 22-24, 2026), and with Fivi-Federazione Italiana Vignaioli Indipendenti (with the Wine Market, November 15-17, 2025), but also with its investment in the American company United Experience (with the launch, in 2026, of three international events in London, Vietnam, and Mexico, under the Wine Experience brand), is investing with ever greater conviction in the wine sector. “The move from Modena to Bologna”, said Luca Cuzziol, president of Excellence Sidi, “represents a natural evolution for an event that is constantly growing and becoming increasingly central to the HoReca sector”. “We are proud to host “Champagne Experience” 2025 at BolognaFiere, the largest Italian event dedicated to Champagne, with 700 labels available for tasting. This event”. said Gianpiero Calzolari, president of BolognaFiere, “reinforces the role of the exhibition center as an international platform for wine and agri-food”. | |
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| | ProWein maintains its focus on the wine business, but becomes ProWein Düsseldorf, strengthening its ties to the city, concentrating the fair (in halls 1 to 7, with space for 4,000 exhibitors and reduced distances for visitors), and launching the “Buyer Concierge” service, initially for buyers from the United States, Canada, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia, while for those located within a 350-kilometer radius of Düsseldorf, the fair will offer daily visits to ProWein Düsseldorf on all three days of the event, through free bus transfers centrally coordinated from key locations in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, with ProWein Düsseldorf Express. These are some of the new features (in more detail) announced in recent days by Marius Berlemann, COO of Messe Düsseldorf, for the relaunch of the German fair, which will take place in 2026, from March 14 to 17. | |
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| | | Mountain wine is more than just wine: in Italy, mountain viticulture accounts for only 2% of the total, but its inestimable value lies in its expression of community, its role as guardian of biodiversity and culture, and the fruit of labor that keeps high-altitude economies and territories alive. Like the 94 peaks over 3,000 meters and the nearly 300 lakes in Trentino, where, in the shadow of the Dolomites, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in just over 1,100 hectares of vineyards (16% of the entire vineyard area in Trentino), Trentodoc is born (the star of the “Trentodoc Festival” 2025, now in its fourth edition, currently taking place in Trento), the classic mountain method par excellence (and the first to obtain DOC status), which, in this context, has raised its quality to the highest levels, earning a prominent place in the world of Italian sparkling wine, with constant growth that has seen bottles and turnover double in the last decade: 12.3 million bottles sold for €180 million in 2024, over 90% in Italy, the main market, while exports represent a strategic asset for the future of the brand, with the US and Switzerland as the primary markets to focus on, riding the wave of global passion for sparkling wines and critical acclaim (with Trentodoc being the most awarded in Tom Stevenson’s famous “World Sparkling Wine Awards”). | |
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| | | Despite the difficulties of the wine market, there are areas that are performing better than others, and companies that are excelling and attracting investment by inspiring confidence in the future. This is the case, for example, in Franciacorta, a region renowned for its excellent Italian sparkling wines, and with Montina Franciacorta, one of the most famous companies in the area, owned by the Bozza family, which has been joined by Raoul Bontempi, CEO of Bontempi Vibo Spa, a leading Italian manufacturer of fasteners (with a turnover of around €50 million, ed.), who has acquired a minority stake in the company. | |
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| | From Saracco (no. 3) to La Raia (no. 7), in the “top 10”, and then again Produttori di Manduria, Poggio Argentiera, Cantina Valle Isarco, Muralia, Stemmari (Mezzacorona), Gerardo Cesari (Caviro), Strasserhof, Cascina Galarin, Scacciadiavoli, Tenuta I Fauri, Rocca di Montemassi (Zonin1821), Tenuta Rapitalà, Pasqua, Fattoria di Magliano and Vite Colte: these are the 17 Italian wineries featured in the “Top 100 Best Buys” 2025 by “Wine Enthusiast” (whose wine writers for Italy are Danielle Callegari and Jeff Porter), dedicated to labels that reach American shelves for under $20 but with a score above 90 out of 100, i.e., those with the best value for money, an aspect that is more important than ever, especially in this economic phase that sees wine consumption contracting in the US and beyond due to tariffs and other factors. | |
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| | Markets, with the US irreplaceable despite tariffs; health consciousness to contend with; the cultural dimension of wine, to be communicated both globally and in the regions where wine is produced; these are the topics at the center of the debate (in more detail) at the opening of Monteleone21, the new experiential hub of Masi, the historic Valpolicella winery in Sant’Ambrogio in Valpolicella, with a monumental “fruttaio”, the “Cathedral of Amarone”, which will also be an artistic space, starting with “L’Anima dell'Amarone”, the installation created by Venetian artist Fabrizio Plessi. | |
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