WINE OF THE FUTURE – HEALTH, ISLAM, NEW PRODUCTION PHILOSOPHIES, A CRITIQUE AND BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH THE PUBLIC: THESE ARE THE NEXT CHALLENGES ITALIAN WINE FACES, ACCORDING TO THE CONVENTION HELD AT THE “PORTO CERVO WINE FESTIVAL” (6-8 MAY)

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Health awareness, prohibition and Islam: these are some of the critical issues that wine of the future must face, according to Giovanni Negri, a wine producer in Piedmont as well as a journalist and writer.

Health awareness, prohibition and Islam, according to Giovanni Negri, a wine producer in Piedmont as well as a journalist and writer, are some of the critical issues that wine of the future will have to face. There is a risk that a dominant opinion coupled to health awareness and prohibition”, he told www.winenews.tv , “will give wine a negative reputation and it will be considered the symbol of all evils (physical and social) that alcohol abuse conjures up in people’s minds. Hurting, in fact, those who drink a glass of wine with meals while letting kids go to discotheques and get smashed on any kind of alcohol”.

Public opinion can change from considering a glass of wine a positive symbol of good taste and good values to a “negative” one like cigarettes. “If this dominant thought prevails it would be no surprise to find alcohol-free wine and a rosé Barolo”.

There is, however, an “unexplored” opportunity, the world of Islam: on one hand fundamentalism and fundamentalist dogmas are growing while on the other, some prohibitions, like drinking alcohol have become like the Catholic dogma “no sex before marriage” that only a few Catholics follow. This is why we need to look at Islam not only as a potential market, but also, in the future, as wine producers. Many of the territories that are today part of the Islamic world were in ancient times cultivated with grape vines”.
These were the topics at the “Porto Cervo Wine Festival”, that Antonio Paolini (“Vini Buoni d’Italia”, Touring Club guide) and Bruno Gambacorta, (Tg2 – Eat Parade) discussed on “wine in 2020”. They asked for less alcohol and more nature. But “organic” production is not the same quality everywhere, explained Michele Bernetti (Umani Ronchi, one of the most important wineries in Italy), who produces wine in the “traditional” way in the Marche region, and organically in the Abruzzo region “because it is feasible there and also reduces costs, even though there is a risk that not every vintage will be good. Is there an advantage on the market? It is only for those people who are more oriented toward ecology”.

It is the same for the sulphite issue. “For some ready-to-drink wines, it can be reduced or even eliminated and for others it cannot”, says the winemaker Roberto Cipresso. “Rather than a solution, which is not exportable to other wines and is fragile but responsible for the distribution and sale of the product,” explains Cipresso, “it is a message”. And, it is a message that gives wine its charm which it thrives on and will continue to thrive on; especially our wine, if we want to make it to 2020 in good health.

We will be dealing with consumers who will take for granted many aspects of wine, from “quality”, considered the first step, to eco- sustainability. We have history and stories, and even a recently rediscovered grape from Venice that one drinks watching and dreaming about sunsets in Piazza San Marco. My last suggestion is to return to “sexual crossbreeding” of the grape seed because an asexual vine takes away vigor and health”.

Wine critics must also make some changes, said Giancarlo Gariglio, curator of Slow Wine, the no-rankings guide by Slow Food. “Wine in 2020,” he explained, “will be very good because the fields and the vines will be improved. The risk is a piloted crash of the “any” bottle market and of the ratio price/value of grapes that could sink the results of this Italian wine Renaissance, making everything we are discussing seem utopia”.

Wine guides must go beyond the phase (even though it was very important in its time) of “depending” on scores given out by Robert Parker or other gurus and change the yardstick. In 2020 there will not be “a” wine but “the” wines and they will be the segments of the wine market. It will not be just the historic wine countries and wine lovers but also the new producing countries and consumers “which need to be played through exports, competition and seduction. Of course, we have to speak English and not claim to teach them everything just because “we are Italy”.

“Communication also needs to get away from its cryptic language”, Alessandro Regoli, director and founder of WineNews, explained. “We need to refurbish the role of wine as a companion at the table. Enough of TV commercials with close-ups of floating wine glasses. More tales and stories are needed and more vitality. And we need an Italian critic that knows how to give us credit abroad, where today we are considered little, or not at all”.



The Report - Winenews, wine that “communicates” more

There is a need to find a new language and a new way to consume wine so it can return to its main role of daily companion and at the same time continue to grow in quality and charm, to satisfy the more expert and knowledgeable wine fans, using all the channels available, first of all Internet. This is the challenge that Italian wine (and not only) faces today and tomorrow on a larger and more complex market.

This new challenge must not deny the recent past of wine, that through its work of communication and consumer education elevated it from a simple food to a “noble” product, but that now could be holding it back. The challenge must use first and foremost Internet, which counts 2 billion users in the world- 420 million in China , 240 million in the United States and 30 million in Italy (data: www.internetworldstats.com), and where social networks (Facebook has more than 500 million users and Twitter almost 200 million), and mobile connection are the leaders: cell phones, smartphones, etc., according to the Forrest Research estimates will triple by 2013 in Europe and pass the 125 million mark, 38% of cell phone owners.

The user has access to services and information at the tip of his fingers. This represents an enormous potential for wine, considering that web access costs are not high and the Italian wine world is mostly made up of small wineries that do not have the economical strength to invest in traditional mass-media communication. Moreover, young people, who will be the consumers of tomorrow, get information and communicate on the web.

This is the channel, or one of the channels that Italian wineries are slowly realizing they must learn how to use better than they have up until now; there is also the factor content. One of today’s and the immediate future’s key words is “versatility”, just like “territory” has been the key word for the last 20 years.

To become “versatile”, wine must free itself of the complex rites and technical language that in the past certainly helped its evolution from a mere drink to a cultural product. Now, in a continually changing society, though, these values risk actually harming wine and keeping it away from its daily role.
This does not mean throwing away the baby with the bath water, rather intercepting the new consumer needs in Italy and abroad. It is important to keep wine culture, specialization and education but it is just as important that even quality wine, for instance, creates or rediscovers a different kind of “rite” – a simpler way to tell its story and to drink it.

Further, if quality wine is synonymous with luxury, or rather, a small everyday luxury that many can afford, it is the concept of luxury that is changing: from possessing it to experiencing it.

Even great wines should not be considered untouchable or to be saved for those special occasions, that then never arrive: they are made to drink and share with friends and loved ones. This doesn’t mean that “icon” or “legendary” wines are not to be considered, though actually there are a lot fewer of them than one would think. It only means that we need to think that wine is made first of all to drink and enjoy and then to be studied and appreciated.

In other words, we need to find a more “friendly” and appealing approach to convince those, even on a superficial level, who are not interested in wine. We also have to remember that wine has competitors not only in the historic or New World producing countries.

In order to target young people, wine has to take into account the many types of drinks that certainly don’t have the history, tradition, quality and other features that wine has, but they do have a more powerful “appeal”. The producers' job is to renew the product without altering it while communication has to find a new language, rediscover communication channels that bring wine back to its original role of daily and healthy companion.

Great wines and great vintages in the half bottle are welcome and so is a glass of wine at restaurants, bars and wine bars. They need to be managed in terms of quality, offering select products and not the “half full bottle”, since modern technology permits it: it brings to my mind wine dispensers and other similar machines that you are all familiar with, at affordable costs.

Versatility also means a renewed attention to in-home consumption since “out of home” consumption fell 14% in 2010, due to the strict road rules and the economic crisis which forced consumers to optimize their resources. So, versatility also means thinking of different distribution channels even for high end wines, which are still difficult to find in the large supermarkets where 65% of wines in Italy are sold.

Versatility also means product innovation: not abandoning or forgetting tradition, which is an important reference point of the production and narration of Italian wines, but why not be open to grape cultivation experiments that can attract a larger public (and not just wine lovers) which is more and more sensitive to issues like technology applied to respecting the environment. The same goes for winery procedures: product innovation of wine but also packaging and the materials used for corks and containers, according to what the winery requires but also according to what the Italian and world markets demand.

If domestic wine consumption has fallen to 40 liters pro capita, as some people say, maybe it is time to ask whether this decrease is due to the economic crisis, the Breathalyzer, the fact that the traditional midday meal is practically skipped or if the product wine, which has improved in quality, has taken a different direction than what consumers really want.
Sparkling wines are a great example: they are the only wine typology that has greatly increased in domestic and foreign consumption. The products offer an easily identifiable and blended taste and have opened new spaces for drinking: they are no longer tied to celebrations or end of the year parties and are becoming more and more the stars of aperitifs and meals both out of home and in home. Versatility also means wanting to know and understand the world of wine, and not expecting the world to only know and understand us. On the Asian markets consumers are used to cuisines totally different but not less “excellent” than ours. They want certain kinds of wine, maybe sweeter and we should not impose wines in these countries where the new “middle class” consumers that have a great potential for development, cannot read the labels.

Versatility then for wine of the future means bringing back some of wine’s past features: simplicity, daily consumption and a complement to food. These features have been somewhat lost due to an increase in value and stardom. It is not necessary to abandon its complex production methods and narration aimed at a not large or especially knowledgeable public, but it is necessary simply to want to understand the new opportunities the world markets
offer. In this way, it might find new consumption areas that up till now were victims of snobbery.