New Partners and Stronger Impact for Italian Wine on the International Scenario
(Verona – Italy, 2 October 2023) A busy autumn for the internationalization of Vinitaly and Italian wine, with two new trade fairs scheduled. Things start off in the United States, with the International Wine Expo (IWE) in Chicago 22 & 23 October. It marks the début for collaboration between the Chicago Chamber of Commerce, Italian Expo and Vinitaly. Then comes Serbia (Wine Vision by Open Balkan, in Belgrade 16-19 November) with Veronafiere directly involved in the organization of ”Italy Area’. The business perspective for both events is also supported thanks to partnership with ICE – Italian Trade and Investment Agency in the selection of an important contingent of buyers.
Chicago will welcome around 200 Italian companies (more than 1000 labels) from all over the country, for matchings with 350 qualified market operators – starting with the horeca sector – arriving especially from the Midwest, an area with more than 70 million inhabitants (including 2.6 million Italians) with an annual consumption of almost 800 million bottles of wine. The tasting programme involving 68 labels also includes the Decanter Magazine masterclass with the top six Italian wines in the 2023 World Wine Awards. “IWE is our trade fair début in the leading consumer country in the world,” said the President of Veronafiere, Federico Bricolo. The quality and extent of innovation developed over the years by our partners convinced us that this new alliance may prove to be strategic for Vinitaly right from its début. The potential for setting up a landmark for Italian wine in a business centre of such great interest is considerable.”
The Italian Area at Wine Vision in Belgrade involves a market extending from the Balkans to Eastern Europe as a whole and Austria. “Thanks to institutional agreements with the Governments of Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania which established the Open Balkan economic zone,” commented Maurizio Danese, Managing Director of Veronafiere, “Vinitaly together with ICE Trade Agency becomes the business player for Italian wine at the main wine fair in South East Europe. The objective is to strengthen a B2b approach involving demand in a macro-region which, even in a difficult year such as this, is still posting two-figure growth.” In the first 6 months of this year, according to the UIV-Vinitaly Observatory, the growth trend for sales of Italian wine in the 16 countries in question (Albania, Austria, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Turkey) was 16.5%, worth 243 million euros for the first half year. This result goes against the trend for global performance by the sector in the first half-year (-0.4%) and confirms Italian leadership in the area considered.
