ONLY GOOD NEWS FOR VERONA: THE CITY OF VERONA WILL BE THE SOLE ITALIAN REPRESENTATIVE OF THE "GREAT WINES CAPITALS", VINITALY IS ALMOST SOLD OUT AND VERONAFIERE, AS WINENEWS ANTICIPATED, IS ABOUT TO BECOME AN LTD AND GO PUBLIC

Verona will be the sole Italian representative of the international wine tourism capitals. The agreement with the "Great Wines Capitals”, the network including 10 major cities (Adelaide, Bilbao, Bordeaux, Cape Town, Mainz, Mendoza, Porto, San Francisco, Valparaiso and, now, Verona) in the heart of the most important wine regions in the Old and New Worlds, was reached in Porto.
There is more good news for the city of Verona (reported in the newspaper Corriere del Veneto by RCS, ed.), as Vinitaly, the leading exhibition of the Italian wine world, which will be held April 9th to 12th, 2017 (www.vinitaly.com), is already almost sold out, and VeronaFiere, the most important trade and promotion player in the world of Made in Italy food, of which Vinitaly is its flagship, is about to become an S.p.A. (Ltd) company and is ready to go public on the Milan Stock Exchange.
WineNews had anticipated the news last summer (here: http://bit.ly/2fktful), and now the Council of the Veneto Region has given its OK to the Maurizio Danese and the general manager Giovanni Mantovani reorganization plan.
The final go ahead will be the approval at the General Assembly of shareholders scheduled for next November 29th. The Verona Exhibition Authority (governed by public laws, even though operating a private service) will become a joint stock company. The board choice unanimously approved the choice in July, gave away to the path that will bring the VEA (whose members today are the City of Verona, Cariverona Foundation, Chamber of Commerce of Verona, Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Catholic Insurance Company, Banco Popolare, Veneto Agriculture, Province of Verona, Intesa San Paolo, Banca Veronese Credito Cooperativo di Concamarise, Magazzini Real Estate Ltd. and the Veneto Region, as stated on www.veronafiere.it to its new structure.
It is still to be seen whether VeronaFiere will go alone in this new adventure or, as leaked in the summer, together with some partners, like Simest, a “public” financial company, which has been working with Veronafiere do Brasil, ed.), and reported great results in the first quarter of 2016: 11%, amounting to 8 million euros compared to the same period in the previous year.