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Issue 639 - July 24th - 28th 2023 - Expressly created for 4.557 wine lovers,
professionals and opinion leaders from all over the world | |
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| | | Frescobaldi, a historic winemaking family of Tuscany, in wine since 1300, and today a galaxy rooted in the main territories of the region, after the purchase of the Collio-based Attems label (in 2001), has decided to invest in a far more exotic and geographically distant territory, such as the Willamette Valley, in the heart of Oregon, a land of great Pinot Noirs and excellent Chardonnays, where it reached an agreement to acquire Domaine Roy & fils, one of Oregon’s most prestigious producers, which boasts just over 16 hectares under vine, including Pinot Noirs (14 hectares) and Chardonnays (2 hectares), grown organically and divided into two vineyards: Iron Filbert and Quartz Acorn. | |
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| | Investing in wine, despite the many difficulties related to climate change and an increasingly complicated and competitive consumer market, is still a good idea, and proof of this is first of all the flow of investments from abroad, more or less substantial, which, in recent years, has seen numerous changes of hands in Italy’s most important wine territories, from Tuscany to Langhe. At the same time, practically all the major wine groups in Italy have grown - both in size and turnover - between mergers and new acquisitions, in many cases making them players of international stature. A dimension told not only by the birth and strengthening of commercial networks owned by large groups, between the U.S. and China, but also by the ability of these same groups to look right across the Atlantic, not only in search of new markets or new partners, but as buyers. The latest example is Frescobaldi, which has invested in the Willamette Valley, in the heart of Oregon, the land of great Pinot Noirs, where it has defined the acquisition of the Domaine Roy & fils label. An investment that follows by just a few weeks the acquisition of the other historic Tuscan and Italian wine family, Antinori, which in May secured full ownership of the legendary Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, in Napa Valley, after a 16-year partnership with the prestigious American company Ste. Michelle Wine Estates. Taking a further leap back in time, another important acquisition dates back to early 2022, that by Santa Margherita, one of the most prestigious wine poles in Italy, from the Marzotto family, through its operating branch in America, Santa Margherita USA, of Roco Winery, one of the most prestigious wineries in Oregon. The first page of the short story about the investments of large Italian wine companies in the U.S., however, was written many years ago, in 1976, by Gianni Zonin, then at the helm of Zonin 1821, which, pioneeringly, gave shape to the dream of America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, who had already two centuries earlier attempted to produce wine in his native Virginia. Here, around the Palladian mansion dating back to 1821, Gianni Zonin founded Barboursville Vineyards, an estate of 500 hectares, 70 of which are planted with vines.
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| | In a Sicily that is a treasure chest of viticultural diversity, without a doubt, the brightest diamond in this treasure chest in recent years has been Etna. A complicated territory with an almost mysterious, heroic charm, made great first by “historic” realities and then by the arrival of all the major names in Sicilian wine, and still with major investments from outside the Region. A territory, that of Etna, where the value of the vineyard has reached important values, with the price of a hectare oscillating between 125,000 and 150,000 euros, more than in the rest of Sicily. And the success of this area does not seem to stop. So much so that, according to numbers from the Observatory of the Consorzio di tutela dei Vini Etna Doc, led by Francesco Cambria, bottlings of Etna Doc, in the first half of 2023, grew overall by 6.2% (in more detail). | |
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| | | After “exporting” their method of pruning vines to more than 200 of the most prestigious wineries on the Planet, from Italy to France, Germany to Austria, Switzerland to Spain, Portugal to Australia, South Africa to the USA, Chile to Argentina, according to WineNews rumors, pruning master Marco Simonit, with his France team, has been taking care of the world’s most legendary vineyards for the past few months: those of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, an icon of Burgundy, protagonist of the last half century of one of the most historic and important territories with its myth wines, which has called the “Vine Master Pruners” as new super-advisors among its rows, practically all Pinot Noir and exclusively Grand Cru, with the “monopoles” Romanée-Conti and La Tâche. One of the most successful stories ever of Italian know how in the world, that of Marco Simonit and Pierpaolo Sirch who, with their team, devised the “Simonit & Sirch” pruning - which codifies the correct rules of vine pruning - now used in the world’s most important vineyards, including, in Italy, from Biondi-Santi to Bellavista, from Braida to Ceretto, from Alois Lageder to Ferrari, from Petra to Allegrini, from Sella & Mosca to Feudi di San Gregorio, among others. | |
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| | | There are less than three years to go before the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the biggest sporting event that Italy is returning to host exactly 20 years after the Winter Olympics in Turin, but there is already a good reason to raise a glass: the official partnership with Prosecco Doc, the world’s most popular and consumed sparkling wine, which thus embraces the sporting event, an exceptional springboard to further consolidate its leadership in the global consumption market. | |
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| | The downy mildew alarm among Italian vineyards is rising exponentially. A topic that has been talked about for some time, as done by WineNews, and, now, to return to the subject is also the harvest Observatory of Assoenologi, Ismea, and the Unione italiana vini (Uiv). The pathogenic phenomenon, the Observatory explains, is affecting in particular the areas of the Adriatic ridge, starting with Abruzzo and Molise, but also many areas of Marche, Basilicata, and Puglia. According to the president of Assoenologi, Riccardo Cotarella, “we will certainly have a reduced quantity of product, but the work of winemakers will guarantee high quality wines”. “Downy mildew cannot be the remedy to the problem of stocks, for the simple fact that a disease cannot solve a weakness in the system”, says Lamberto Frescobaldi, Uiv president. | |
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| | “The “hottest” Romagna Wines Preview in history”: this is how the Consorzio Vini di Romagna defined the 2023 edition of “Vini ad Arte” ( in more detail WineNews tastings). The path taken for the wines of Romagna remains the one begun a few years ago, of serious and in-depth research on the different pedo-climatic conformations of the territory, with two additional factors of study: the local one, of the reaction of the Romagna soil to climatic adversity, and the national factor, of a pathogenic pressure in the vineyard never seen before. | |
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