Wine Intelligence’s “Five As” to deal with the present and respond to new challenges

What might be right today will probably not be right tomorrow. In other words, in this period something that is working fine right now, may be a total fiasco next week. The complications we are experiencing in this historical moment are accelerating social, economic and consumption changes in a picture that is continually and constantly evolving. It therefore becomes essential to prepare equally rapid and effective responses. This situation is the same in all sectors, including wine. At the beginning of the year, Wine Intelligence had compiled a list, as usual, of the “Global Trends in Wine” for 2020, divided into four areas, or the “Four Rs”: Relationship, Retail, Repertoire and Responsibility. Today, instead, Wine Intelligence has realized it has to integrate those predictions and recommendations, adapting them to the current period; so they have created the “Five As”. These are: Adaptation (ability to adapt to the new situation), Adjustment (fine-tuning, especially in marketing and communication terms), Agility (the sense of speed in responding to new needs), Appropriateness (consider the relevance of a choice related to the social and cultural context) and Alignment (what choices do we make as a company in relation to the cultural, social and political order we are living in?).
Wine Intelligence has identified advice and principles, which are the result of observing numerous examples (collected mostly in Great Britain, ed.) of how the wine and spirits sector is responding to the crisis, which are the same in Italy as well. For instance, those who have converted their businesses rethinking their offer to take-away products or home deliveries to guarantee a bit of a boost in this moment of disastrous economic difficulty, such as restaurants, ice cream parlors, breweries, butchers, grocery shops and bakeries. For the last several weeks, WineNews has been writing about how engaging is now conveyed above all on social medias. Indeed, live Instagram shows of chefs are watched more than those of pop stars. Online tastings, organized by sommelier associations and wine companies are all over the web, and there are virtual tours of wineries. Then, there are two aspects of communication from wine companies, and not only, that have gone beyond just economic goals. On one hand, supporting the hospital sector, through fundraising, solidarity projects, and donations of masks and respirators. On the other, helping those who need it the most, through food collections, providing beds in tourist facilities for those who have to be quarantined as well as hundreds of other activities that the society and the business community all over Italy have promoted.