Internationalization and sustainability: keywords for Italian wine in 2020

The final board of directors meeting in 2019, which included the Undersecretary for Agricultural Policies Giuseppe L’Abbate, Brunella Saccone (ICE), the Head of the European and International Policies and Rural Development of the Ministry Giuseppe Blasi, producers and young Italian wine producers of AGIVI (led by the neo president Violante Gardini, ed.), was held in Rome. The focus was on going beyond boundaries to complete the internationalization process of Italian wine. The goals will be achieved thanks to the creation of the “Wine Table”, an instrument that contains the guidelines to establish it on increasingly important markets, such as the Asian one.
Of the many topics discussed, special focus was dedicated to internationalization and sustainability, both of which are central to the sector. Ernesto Abbona, president of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV), emphasized that “internationalization for Italian wine is an absolute priority and represents a unique opportunity for our sector. We will continue to work alongside ICE, and the institutions to develop this priority. Specifically, we will continue our fruitful collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, to which the documentation concerning commercial and promotional policy with foreign countries and the development of the internationalization of the Country System has been transferred. The Wine Table, created to develop the guidelines for the promotion of Italian wine and articulate operative proposals to the ICE Agency, has been confirmed and will soon be called to define new actions to be taken and countries on which to focus. And, “Asia will certainly be a top player, also thanks to the Vinitaly Wine To Asia initiative (including 500 companies, of which at least 25% will be Italian)”. Abbona elucidated the importance of focusing on the formation of wine culture in foreign countries, “like we are already doing in the US, addressing large importers, retailers and wine lovers, as well as continuing incoming procedures. Moreover, the actions and promotion initiatives undertaken to date must be strengthened and, to this purpose, we are quite satisfied that the “Extraordinary Made in Italy Plan”, launched in 2015, has been strengthened and is taking on an organizational dimension”.
Italy wants to become a model of sustainability and aims to do so quickly.
“Our country”, explained Paolo Castelletti, general secretary of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV), “is certainly one of the most dedicated and active on sustainability and we support the Ministry’s desire to reach a national standard for wine. We must also thank the Head of Department, Blasi, for the work accomplished thus far. Now that the technical phase on the single sustainability standard UIV strongly advocated has ended, and to which we have generously contributed, we hope that the Ministry of Agricultural Policies will translate the work done into a legal standard quickly. And by so doing, upon completing the various institutional steps, the standard will be presented at Vinitaly, making Italy the first country in the world to have it. Continuing on this subject, our resolve is that sustainability will not only concern individual companies but also become a practice for all the wine-growing districts in Italy, and in other countries. Plus, a further step is that the identifying logo of the products obtained by these standards is defined as sustainable. That is, a certification that guarantees transparency on the markets that would favor the companies and the Ministry for the promotion of Made in Italy”.