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Issue 721 - February 17th - 21st 2025 - Expressly created for 3730 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Antinori invests again in the U.S.: Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, a California wine icon of which the historic Italian wine company has full ownership since 2023, has acquired the Arcadia Vineyard, founded by Warren Winiarski, in the Coombsville Ava. “My friend Warren has always been very attached to this vineyard of his, we are happy to reunite it with the ownership of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars”, commented Piero Antinori. An acquisition that “brings us closer to our goal of producing Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars wines with 100% of our own grapes, as we do for all Antinori wines”, said CEO Renzo Cotarella. | |
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| | Awareness that the games, even for wine (as for many other sectors), are played in the EU; The disorientation given by an almost “Janus-faced” attitude of the EU Commission, which, on the one hand, promises support for the sector, with Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen (who in the coming days will publish his road map on the reform of the CAP, and in March a package of specific measures for wine), but, on the other, wants to limit communication promotion and consumption, intervening on taxes and excise duties, in the Beca (Beating Cancer Plan), without making a distinction between moderate consumption and alcohol abuse, also in a way that is not very understandable given that the EU Parliament, which is the most direct expression of the citizens’ vote, has gone in the opposite direction, as recalled by the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida. And again, a CMO that is increasingly crucial for opening new markets, but has become more and more bureaucratically complicated, sometimes to the point of intimidating or even discouraging companies, especially smaller ones, from using it, to the point that not all of it is used, with so many funds going back to the EU. All this, in the context of a market that is shrinking in mature countries, which is pushing to open new ones, and which also calls into question the measures to rebalance supply and demand, starting with the grubbings, but not only, as pointed out, among others, by the representations of the supply chain, in the words of Albiera Antinori (Federvini), Lamberto Frescobaldi (Unione Italiana Vini - Uiv) and Luca Rigotti (Confcooperative and Copa Cogeca), but also by the heads of Coldiretti (Dominga Cotarella), Confagricoltura (Alberto Statti), Federdoc (Giangiacomo Gallarati Scotti Bonaldi), and Cia-Agricoltori (Cristiano Fini), with a vision shared by many Italian MEPs from all sides. And with a wine world united in wanting to grow, but also ready to defend itself by any means, “even taking to the streets, in a democratic way, to make our voice heard and defend a flag of made in Italy”, as Assoenologi president Riccardo Cotarella told WineNews. Messages and insights among the many that emerged, in Rome, on Capitol Hill. | |
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| | Tuscany’s largest and most “pop” appellation, Chianti, and the pearl of the Maremma, Morellino di Scansano, are looking to tomorrow with an awareness of today’s difficulties, but also with a certain optimism for the future, on the back of an all-too-favorable 2024 vintage, in many respects, and also with new projects aimed above all at experiences designed for the consumer, on the territory. Messages coming from Florence, from “Chianti Lovers & Rosso Morellino” 2025, with new vintages from the territories. And if Chianti is thinking of a “Chianti Week”, in May, open to the public, and looks to the future with positivity, with rising values and the wines of the 2024 vintage with a lower alcohol content than in the past, welcomed by the producers, Morellino di Scansano continues to focus strongly on wine tourism.
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| | | A territory that has generated beauty, with a landscape whose “villa-farm system” is a Unesco candidate, that has produced agriculture and economy, thanks to wine, and tourism, while respecting its community, cannot but be “sustainable”. This territory is the Chianti Classico, 6,800 hectares planted with vines out of 70,000, between the Siena of the Middle Ages and the Florence of the Renaissance, 486 producers of which 345 make the entire supply chain, 35-38 million bottles a year destined for 160 countries, for an economic value of district - wine and other excellences, and allied industries - estimated at over 1 billion euros. At the helm, a consortium that, after the winning bet of the Gran Selezione and the Uga-Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive, has launched a “Sustainability Protocol”. And, since, according to a survey presented, in recent days, at Chianti Classico Collection 2025 in Florence (where WineNews tasted the new vintages, and collected the voices of the territory in a video), for 48% of the wineries sustainability is already the watchword and for 60% the “sustainable wine” is the one that preserves the landscape, “our gaze,” explains Consortium President Giovanni Manetti, “is widening to social sustainability and, novelty, to cultural sustainability. With the goal, says Consortium director Carlotta Gori, of putting “a dedicated symbol on the label”. | |
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| | | It continues to be well loaded with wine, the “Italian Cellar,” which has more than an average production harvest in its belly: 57.5 million hectoliters of wine, those recorded as of January 31, 2025 by the latest Icqrf report, -1.8% on the same date in 2024, to which 534,447 hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation (+117%) and 5.1 million hectoliters of musts (-6.2%) must be added. A situation barely lighter than a year ago, but with so much product still to be placed on the markets. | |
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| | Famous also for its very strong parochialism, wine Tuscany is trying to turn the tide, to make a system and unite around its strongest and most world-renowned brand, which is, indeed, “Toscana”. And if in recent days in Florence, in the Preview of “L’Altra Toscana”, led by Francesco Mazzei, brought together 13 Dop and Igt wines of the Tuscan region that represent 40% of the entire Tuscan production”, news also arrives that it will be the Consortium of the great Igt Toscana (led by Cesare Cecchi and Stefano Campatelli) to protect the wines of the dynamic Igt Costa Toscana, to date promoted by the Association of the Great Cru of the Tuscan Coast, led by Duccio Corsini. “A beautiful signal and a process that has begun and I hope it will expand. Being able to work as a team today is fundamental”, commented Tuscany Region Agriculture Councillor and Vice President Stefania Saccardi. | |
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| | The future is a table where good, clean and fair wines and foods, synonymous with healthy eating, go together at home and away from home. This is the trend that will be discussed at Slow Wine Fair 2025, the world meeting of the Slow Wine Coalition and wines that are the result of sustainable, artisanal agriculture that respects biodiversity and the landscape, aimed at the socio-cultural growth of farming communities and making consumers more aware, and Sana Food, the new guise of Sana, the historic organic and natural food fair, together at BolognaFiere (February 23-25). | |
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