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Issue 678 - April 22nd - 26th 2024 - Expressly created for 4731 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | In this early spring, which in many parts of Italy resembles a late winter, with the vines already sprouting, fires in the vineyard are returning to provide evocative, but also worrying, images. Like those coming from the social profiles of Abbazia di Novacella, one of South Tyrol’s oldest wineries, whose rows of vines were filled with lit candles to defend the bud-filled plants from the cold. “Tonight the temperatures around the monastery dropped below -2 degrees Celsius. We therefore had to protect the vines from frost damage with warming candles”, the winery explained on Facebook. | |
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| | Small but significant signs of recovery for Italian wine, which, in the face of alarms and pessimistic visions, also needs an injection of confidence to regain enthusiasm and look forward to a 2024 that many have already baptized as decisive for the sector. Good news comes, in fact, from the market with the month of January getting off on the right foot, analyzing Istat data on exports that speak of 539 million euros worldwide, +13.5% over the same month 2023, supported by +11.2% in volume, at 150.5 million liters. Data to be taken with due caution, and relating to only one month of the year, but to be read nonetheless also in light of a 2023 that had started on the same lines as 2022's all-time record in value. And also of the fact that January 2024 is significantly higher than both the same month 2019 (+23.3%), the last pre-pandemic year, and also of January 2020 (+8.8 %), when Covid was not a global threat. Looking at individual countries, the performance of which was analyzed by WineNews, the United States remains firmly established as Italy’s top partner, approaching +14% from a year ago with a value of 136.2 million euros, and above all marking a sharp turnaround on 2023. In second position is confirmed Germany, which, running less than the U.S., travels with a positive sign (+2.7%) with an export value that rose to 84.6 million euros. Closing the podium is the United Kingdom, strong with a brilliant +19.5% and an export, in January, now one step away from the 50 million euros threshold. And then there is Switzerland, which consolidates (29 million euros, +9.2%) preceding Canada, which posts a more than encouraging +21.5% or 27.69 million euros. Good news also comes from France (+6.1%), while it goes down Sweden (-9.5%) dropped to 14.4 million euros in contrast to the Netherlands that takes a big step forward reaching 18.4 million euros of exports (+23.8%) although the biggest exploit is from Russia that reaches +87% approaching 20 million euros. What about the eastern market? China makes +59.8%; Japan makes a positive progression of 34.5%, 10.58 million euros of exports. South Korea is also on the upswing (+6.3%) with exports generating 3.39 million euros in January 2024.
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| | At least officially, no one in Italy has called for it to rebalance supply and production, compared to wine demand. Yet by now, the issue of vineyard explantation has taken center stage in the wine policy debate. And returning to the issue, reiterating a clear “no to the indiscriminate use of explanting”, is the Unione Italiana Vini - UIV, led by Lamberto Frescobaldi, meeting in recent days at the National Council. “Viticulture brings life. Saving the vineyard means repopulating the areas: removing the vineyard means going back to abandonment, the inland areas of the country are a living example of this. We therefore ask that any plan to abandon vineyards can be considered on the condition that vineyards in hill and mountain areas are excluded, as well as those that have already benefited from restructuring and reconversion aid”, Frescobaldi said.
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| | | Although the 2023 harvest, globally, was the poorest since 1961, with 237 million hectoliters of wine produced, down 10% on 2022, and a net decrease in all major producing countries, global production exceeds demand by more than 16 million hectoliters of wine, as consumption, down -2.6% (and down for the third year in a row), stopped at 221 million hectoliters. International trade is also in trouble, with overall exports down -6% in volume, to 99 million hectoliters, the lowest figure since 2010, with a record value, however, at 36 billion euros, the result of an average price per liter that has never been so high, averaging 3.62 euros, up +2% on 2022 and 29% on 2020, but only due to the effect of inflation and higher costs along the supply chain, partly passed on to the market. Which, for wine, remains “global” in any case, since 45% of all wine consumed in the world is drunk in a country other than the country of origin. Overview of the anticipations on the “World Wine Conjuncture 2023” of the International Organization of Vine and Wine - Oiv, headed by Luigi Moio (more data in depth). | |
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| | | An educational vineyard to promote new forms of integration and education for children from the suburbs of Naples and to enhance a disused area with deep historical and archaeological value: this is the spirit of the “Vigna Resilience” project with which the RadiciVive winery, in synergy with the City Council and the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the City of Naples, aims to create a label, the result of joint work, that will help finance new outreach projects in state schools. | |
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| | Today “Prosecco”, thanks to the worldwide success of a large district that has history in the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Docg territory, and a large piece of the present of the larger Doc, between Veneto and Friuli, is a word spoken all over the world. But to write it for the first time, exactly a century ago, in 1924, was Etile Carpenè, the second generation of the family, who brought to the “Vino Spumante” until then known as “Italian Champagne” one of the most strategic determinations in the communication field, inscribing for the first time the term Prosecco on the label. An anniversary also celebrated in recent days, at Vinitaly 2024, in Verona, with a tribute by the Minister of Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, from the winery that invented Prosecco, Carpenè-Malvolti, still in the hands of the family that leads it together with ad Domenico Scimone.
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| | When driving, one should not drink. But if you are lulled by the sea on a cruise ship, a good glass of wine can be indulged in the utmost peace and relaxation. And in order to choose the right one, Msc Cruises, the European leader in the sector, has for some years now chosen Ais - Associazione Italiana Sommelier - as its partner. And thanks to this partnership, now, many professional opportunities open up on board cruise ships for sommeliers, as explained (in more detail), Ais president Sandro Camilli and Luca Valentini, Msc Crociere sales director. | |
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