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Issue 652 - October 23th - 27th 2023 - Expressly created for 4631 wine lovers, professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Burgundy is declining after years of growth, Bordeaux stagnates, while “authentic Italian excellences hold up. And among them, the most identifiable wines are growing”. This is the summary, signed by Raimondo Romani and Flaviano Gelardini, that emerges from the latest auction held in Hong Kong, in recent days, by Gelardini & Romani Wine Auction, the only Italian auction house specializing in wines from Italy, which raised more than 500,000 euros, 98% of the catalog value. The top lots? A bottle of Vosne Romanée Cros Parantoux Henri Jayer 1999, 3 bottles of Barolo Monfortino Riserva 1990 and 3 bottles of Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 1997 Case Basse by Soldera. | |
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| | The 2023 harvest in the European Union was lower in quantity, as estimates had foreseen. But, since the surpluses found in wine cellars in many producing countries are quite high, it is not such a bad thing. Now that grapes are all in the wineries everywhere, the COPA-COGECA estimates revealed a total production of 150 million hectoliters, meaning it has fallen -5.5% on the five-year average. France (growing), Italy and Spain hold first second and third places, while there were significant drops in countries such as Austria (-6%), Greece (-23%), Croatia (-31%) and Slovakia (-20%), due to dry winters, hail and rainy springs. “The sector has been facing major challenges for several years now, not the least of them, of course, the consequences of the Covid pandemic, as well as climatic events and the sharp increase in production costs, combined with a significant increase in interest rates. Nevertheless, European producers have continued growing and demonstrating their resilience”, Luca Rigotti, head of the COPA-COGECA Wine Group, as well as the Alliance of Italian Cooperatives, and the Trentino company Mezzacorona, commented. Looking at individual country data, in 2023, France became the leading European wine producer with an estimated production of 45 million hectoliters, which means an increase of +1.47% over the previous year. As a result, for the first time in seven years, alle Italy lost the top spot as wine producer with an estimated production of 43.9 million hectoliters, representing a loss of -11.92% over last year. alle Heavy spring rains, which turned into floods in the Emilia Romagna region, and heavy episodes of downy mildew, particularly in the center and south of the country, explain this major drop. With an estimated production of 30.8 million hectoliters, Spain, on the other hand, remained Europe’s third-largest producer, despite a decrease in production over 2022 (-14.42%). Adverse weather conditions, with a dry autumn, winter, and spring, with heavy rains in the latter part of spring, heat waves during summer, and hail, meant that Spanish vineyards suffered greatly in terms of production. With France, Italy and Spain together producing nearly 120 million hectoliters, 80% of EU production.
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| | The difficult wine season in the United States, the first country in the world in terms of both imports - with $7.3 billion in 2022 - and wine lovers, with 4.5 billion bottles uncorked, is confirmed: according to the Uiv-Vinitaly Observatory, in the first 8 months of 2023, the trend gap in volumes consumed marks -7.5%, the result in particular of the difficulties encountered in off-trade (-8.3%) only partially moderated by the result in restaurants and clubs (-2.1%). The Observatory’s analysis, based on SipSource data, shows that local wines remain clearly in the lead, with 71% of total consumption. They are followed at a distance by Italian wines, accounting for 10.2% of total demand and 35 % of imported wines. It is in this context that comes Vinitaly's trade fair debut in the United States, in Chicago (in more detail). | |
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| | | 2023, barring resounding and unlikely recoveries in the last months of the year will be remembered as a year in which, Italian wine, after years of attacking markets marked by significant and steady growth, will have played defense. As confirmed by the data released in the Wine Monitor Forum No. 10, in recent days in Bologna, organized by Nomisma. In the first 8 months of 2023, the quantities of Italian still and sparkling wines purchased in the top 12 international markets (those that, to be clear, weigh more than 60% of world wine imports) are down 8%. The same fate befalls sparkling wines, the category that, over the past decade, had instead grown without interruption. But it is no better on the domestic market. Wine sales in the retail channel fluctuate - in the cumulative to September - by more than -2% in volume, with higher reductions in large-scale distribution in the case of still wines (-3.8%). And forecasts on the consumption behavior of Italians for the next 6 months - deduced from a specific Consumer Survey, conducted by Nomisma - are not positive: net of those who will not change their wine purchases compared to the current situation (at least 6 out of 10 Italians, but in the context of a generalized reduction in consumption), there is a 16% of consumers who expect to reduce them. | |
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| | | The editor of WineNews, Alessandro Regoli, as the best wine and food journalist, and then Helmut Kocher (Merano Wine Festival), Denis Pantini (WineMonitor-Nomisma), Christian Scrinzi (Gruppo Italiano Vini), Silvia Imparato (Montevetrano), Jacopo Vagaggini (enologist), and many wineries such as Albino Armani, Argiolas, Vespa Vignaioli per Passione and more: are some of the names awarded by “Vinoway Wine Selection” 2024, an event dedicated to Italian wines of excellence and the most influential figures in the wine industry, at Castello Monaci Resort, in Salice Salentino, in recent days. | |
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| | Fermentation has a unique sound, its music is accompanied by joyful and delicious aromas. It has been exalted by poets and storytellers, musicians and painters, and the word itself contains the concept of fervor, which is activity, joy and dynamic pleasure. From the collaboration between Alessio Tessieri of Noalya, the only direct cocoa grower, and Arnaldo Caprai, the winery led by Marco Caprai that relaunched Sagrantino di Montefalco, after years of experimentation, comes Fervolato, which is not just the simple union of two ingredients such as chocolate and wine, food and drink of the gods, but requires a complex and careful journey made up of no less than three fermentations, that of the cocoa beans, that of the grape must and the joint one in the process that unites them.
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| | After wine, at the Tuscan estate “Il Palagio”, Sting and Trudie Styler are turning to bitters. With “Amante 1530”, which the couple produces with a group of entrepreneurial friends. The enologist (and president of Assoenologi) Riccardo Cotarella (“a return to the past, my first job as an enologist was on vermouths”, he told WineNews) developed the recipe, and the Pallini distillery led by Micaela Pallini (who is also president of Federvini) produced it. The presentation at the Brulghari Hotel in Rome, simultaneous with New York, Venice to Los Angeles. | |
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