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Issue 717 - January 20th - 24th 2025 - Expressly created for 3743 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | The year to come will see wine struggling with the ecological transition, for sustainable and competitive production, and with climate change making itself increasingly felt. Between tastings, while admiring the masterpieces of the city of the Palio, this is discussed at “Wine & Siena” 2025 (until January 27), with the excellences of The WineHunter Award. And with the presentation of the “DiVino Observatory” 2025 of the Santa Chiara Lab from the University of Siena on 3,000 companies, including 600 wineries, and the research of the Agrifood Living Lab with the Microcosm and Aeroponica stations, the most advanced in Italy to study the effects of water stress on vines. | |
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| | Net of the climatic trends of recent years, an average grape harvest in Italy over the past 5 years has production volumes of around 47 million hectoliters, the vast majority to PDO and PGI. It is hard to say whether this is too many or not, in a changing market context in which wine consumption is declining. In any case, while in France, as well as in Australia or California, plans are already in place to grub up vineyards more or less strongly, and more or less supported by public subsidies, throughout Europe, where nearly two-thirds of the world’s wine is produced, and in Italy which, with France, alternates as the world’s top producer in quantity, is beginning to discuss this measure, between definitive uprooting and other “temporary” ones, but still all to be regulated at the EU level (where the regulation on new plantings allows a maximum increase of 1% per year for each member country, ed.). But beyond that, it is a fact that in Italy, from the beginning of the century to today, vineyard hectares have already decreased significantly. A reduction of 15%, from 792,440 hectares in 2000 to 675,135 in 2023, although the lowest peak was in 2015 when 637,634 hectares were reached, then returned to growth, with +4.9% in the last 8 years. Although looking at the 2000-2023 time frame, all regions are losing, more or less markedly, with the exception of Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige, not coincidentally the lands of two of the largest and most successful sparkling and white wine appellations in the world, namely Prosecco Doc and Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, among others. Which are, in essence, also the protagonists of the post-2015 recovery. This is one of the evidence of the Report “Economic situation of the wine sector in Italy in 2024 and needs with respect to future trajectories” signed by Ismea and National Rural Network. At the same time, the average farm area, has gone from 1 to 3 hectares, but above all, ownership is increasingly concentrated, so much so that 20% of the Italian vineyard is led by companies that have an area planted with vines of more than 20 hectares. And the areas claimable to DOC or DOCG have increased from 250,000 hectares in 2000 to over 400,000 hectares in 2020.
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| | Sicilian wine takes its history into the future with “InnoNda”, in the name of Nero d’Avola. A pioneering research project, announced by Assovini Sicilia, which brings together more than 100 of the island’s most virtuous wineries, led by Mariangela Cambria, in collaboration with the University of Milan, with the involvement of four wineries such as Tenuta Rapitalà (belonging to Gruppo Italiano Vini - Giv), Dimore di Giurfo, Feudi del Pisciotto and Tenute Lombardo. The objectives? To investigate techniques in the vineyard and cellar to obtain wines with less alcohol, while maintaining aromatic intensity, taste and quality; to explore fermentation and winemaking in amphora; and to enhance the diversity of the Nero d’Avola grape variety in the Sicilian territory. | |
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| | | It is sustainable at 360 degrees, it comes from organic or biodynamic viticulture, “young” or, in any case, always young, emerging without, however, forgetting the great classics of Italian enology, of iconic appellations and vines and varieties all to be rediscovered, which together represent the great Italian biodiversity, the fruit of a new generation of winemakers, with a very lively and innovative feminine side, and, in a word that unites all these aspects, which is truly unique like the territory in which it is born and which it represents outside and inside the goblet. These are the “thousand facets” of “good, clean and fair” wine, as many as the winemakers and winegrowers from Italy and around the world who adhere to its Manifesto and the Slow Wine Coalition, selected to tell wine enthusiasts, professionals and buyers, through more than 5,000 labels, what it means, today, to follow production, from the vineyard to the cellar, with passion and foresight, to express consistently excellent quality at the “Slow Wine Fair” 2025, at edition No. 4 at BolognaFiere (February 23-25) with the artistic direction of Slow Food. An event that, for the first time at the same time as edition No. 36 of Sana, in the new guise of “Sana Food”, a new concept dedicated to healthy eating out of home, will be a world reference event for organic food. | |
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| | | Getting the production process of fortified wines recognized as a Unesco World Heritage Site: the initiative is by the Consorzio per la Tutela del Vino Marsala Doc, which has invited representatives from Jerez, in Andalusia, considered the “capital of Sherry”, and Samos, in Greece, a territory of great passito wines, to sign a memorandum of understanding that aims at the Unesco goal, already extending the invitation to give their input also to the regions of Madeira, still in Spain, and Porto, in Portugal. Breaking the news is the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles. | |
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| | Donald Trump is officially the new president of the United States. And the wine world (and not only) EU, is looking with great attention to the duties promised in the election campaign. But from many quarters there is speculation that, now as then, some importers have anticipated orders to cope with the market in the coming months, avoiding possible problems. According to the report of “SipSource”, a survey tool of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, in 2024 there was -6.2% in value and -7.2 % in volume, in wine sales. A trend from which Italian wine seems to be “immune,” which is the leader among imported wines that, according to Istat data on the first 10 months of 2024 analyzed by WineNews, grew in value by +8.2%, to 1.59 billion euros, much better than the Italian average (+5.7%). | |
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| | Highlighting the cultural significance of wine as a unifying element in our society, a “cornerstone” of the socio-economy of rural areas, a symbol of conviviality in a context of moderation, and an integral part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle: this is the message of the “Vitaevino” campaign - launched last October and which to date has already collected more than 16,000 signatures - which celebrated its first 100 days with an event hosted, in recent days, by the European Parliament. | |
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