Coronavirus: 2020, a " sabbatical year" for wine events?

The great international and territorial events related to wine (but not only), continue to be canceled, as it is obvious. The COVID emergency is planetary, and if in China people try to start again among a thousand difficulties and restrictions, and in Italy, we see some first timid positive signs, many other countries, from the USA to the United Kingdom, just to name a few, internal problems grow quickly, in a pandemic that will only be truly resolved when it is global. The time frame will be very long. And one thinks that the wine sector, like many others (even much more powerful from an economic point of view, such as the car or electronics sector, which have already canceled almost all the great events of the year), must consider the idea of 2020 as a “sabbatical” year. Canceled the Prowein event in Düsseldorf and then Vinitaly in Verona, the two most important fairs for Italian and world wine, which have made an appointment in 2021, the London Wine Fair has been officially postponed for next year. And among the insiders, the thought and fear, is increasingly concrete, that there are no conditions to set up the events, for now on the calendar, in the last part of the year. Because we are still in a full emergency, and the activities, which will try to resume as soon as possible also to give breath to the economy, will return to march only slowly, and with very strict rules, from what transpires, on movements and gatherings that will last for months. For how long, exactly, it is impossible to know, but the uncertainty that follows from this situation, is another great enemy, the worst condition for those who have to plan big events, and for those who have to plan their participation. And while, as said, in addition to the great fairs of the world, there are the obvious cancellations of the wine events that, in the normal way, animate the many territories of Italy and the world (from Grands Jours de Bourgogne to the “Semaine des Primeurs de Bordeaux 2020”, ed), some begin to suggest to start to resign themselves to 2020 to play in total defense, to think about 2021 of great revival, when the wine, catering, agriculture, and economy, in general, will have to, hoping that the conditions are right, resume marching as quickly as possible, to make up, in the years to come, the ground lost due to the pandemic.