Wine2Wine, the events not to be missed (recommended by WineNews)

The Wine2Wine 2020, to be held November 21st to 24th, will be a special edition, entirely and inevitably digital. The calendar of events of Veronafiere and Vinitaly’s business forum on wine, which has “migrated” to the dedicated platform “VeronaFiere Plus”, will be fuller than ever before. WineNews, media partner of the event has listed the most important events, so spectators won’t get lost. Wine2Wine starts on Saturday, November 21st, with the “Festival of the Future”, focusing on agriculture, and the International Summit on wine including Minister Bellanova, the president of ICE Ferro, the general manager Ismea Borriello, the presentation of the Vinitaly Observatory survey on wine business in the Covid-19 era featuring Italian and foreign players in the sector. Then, most importantly, in the afternoon, the special edition of the 10th year anniversary of OperaWine by Wine Spectator, including a selection of 196 wineries that symbolize Italian wine, among the 2020 nominees, forced to postpone the usual OperaWine Gran Tasting to 2021, and some of the wineries that participated in previous editions. Sunday, November 22nd, will be dedicated to the Assoenologi Conference. On Monday, November 23rd, UIV, FEDERDOC, FEDERVINI, Alleanza per le Cooperative, FIVI and ICE will present the estimated closing figures of Italian exports and the main producing countries, signed by the Vinitaly Nomisma WineMonitor Observatory. Finally, on Tuesday, November 24th, wine tasting for top buyers from Tokyo, in collaboration with the Italian Embassy & ICE.
Let’s start with the main institutional events. The International Summit on Saturday, November 21st, at 10.30 am, on the theme, “The future of wine: different visions, one perspective. Current scenarios and likely challenges for the next decade”, including the main players of Italian and foreign wine industries aimed at developing and strengthening a concrete dialogue between markets and sector workers. The study by Nomisma Wine Monitor for Vinitaly Observatory, which takes stock of the market and wine business in the post Covid-19 era, will open the meeting and participants will be Giovanni Mantovani, CEO Veronafiere, and Denis Pantini, agro-food manager and Wine Monitor by Nomisma. The president of ICE, Carlo Maria Ferro, the CEO of ISMEA, Raffaele Borriello, the president of Veronafiere, Maurizio Danese, and the CEO of Veronafiere, Giovanni Mantovani will attend the International Summit; there will be two round tables, one focused on the foreign market and one on the Italian market. Josè Rallo, Donnafugata, Dominga Cotarella, Famiglia Cotarella, Lamberto Frescobaldi, Frescobaldi, Ettore Nicoletto, Bertani Domains, Riccardo Pasqua, Pasqua Vigneti, Marco Nannetti, Cevico Group will attend the Italian one, and the Minister of Agricultural Food and Forestry Policies, Teresa Bellanova, is expected to intervene at the end of the meeting.
On Saturday afternoon, November 21st, OperaWine, the 10th year anniversary, will also be online, the event created in 2012 by Veronafiere, Vinitaly in collaboration with the famous American magazine, Wine Spectator. 196 major Italian producers have been selected for this special ten-year anniversary edition celebration. The 2020 selectees, who have been forced to postpone the usual OperaWine Gran Tasting to 2021, will be joined by a selection of top wineries from all prior editions (there will also be a question and answer session with “Wine Spectator” journalists Bruce Sanderson, Thomas Matthews and Alison Napjus).
Wine2Wine will also host the Assoenologi 2020 Conference Day online on its web platform, Sunday, November 22nd. Riccardo Cotarella, president of Assoenologi, will open the event on two different round tables, both moderated by the journalist Bruno Vespa. The first one will be dedicated to Wine & Health, including doctors like the nutritionist, Giorgio Calabrese, the cardiologist, Vincenzo Montemurro and the head physician of San Raffaele, Alberto Zangrillo. The second round table, titled, “Prosecco: an all-Italian phenomenon” includes, among others, Franco Adami, producer of one of the top brands in Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, the researchers, Diego Tomasi and Vasco Boatto, presidents of the Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia Regions, Luca Zaia and Massimiliano Fedriga, and the president of the Wine Committee, Michele Zanardo.
On Monday, November 23rd, at 11 am, a round table is reserved for Italian large-scale distribution, titled, 2Wine and large-scale distribution in the face of change”. The research institute, IRI, will present a study on the wine market and large-scale distribution in the first 10 months of 2020, and representatives from FEDERVINI, UNIONE ITALIANA VINI, CARREFOUR, CONAD, COOP ITALIA and the SELEX GROUP will discuss and try to identify consumer purchasing trends, useful elements to restart, synergies between wineries and large-scale distribution to encourage increased consumption, and the dynamics of Italian wine exports on International large scale distribution. The dynamics and characteristics of large-scale distribution is an increasingly essential channel. Up until now, it has been the only real barrier to the drop in consumption outside the home for most of the Italian agro-food sector, including wine. In the first 10 months of 2020, wine sales in large-scale distribution, according to IRI data, grew +6.5% on 2019. On Monday, November 23rd, at 12.30 pm, the conference, in streaming, led by Giovanni Mantovani, General Manager of Veronafiere, and entitled, “Wine in the changing global scenario: the challenges of the supply chain”. Riccardo Ricci Curbastro president of Federdoc will participate in the discussion together with Ernesto Abbona, president of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV), Sandro Boscaini, president of Federvini, Luca Rigotti, national wine sector coordinator of the Alliance for Cooperatives, Matilde Poggi, president of Fivi, and Roberto Luongo, CEO of ICE, to examine the future of Italian wine and the role of the representative categories in this phase, which has had such an economic impact (during the webinar, the estimates of the closing figures of Italian exports and the main producing countries of the Vinitaly Nomisma WineMonitor Observatory will be presented, exclusively). The cycle of events will close on Tuesday, November 24th, at 10 am, at the tasting for top buyers, in connection with Tokyo, organized by Veronafiere, with the Italian Embassy, ICE, Ferrari - Fratelli Lunelli, Marchesi Antinori and Donnafugata. This event will celebrate the 5th edition of the “Week of Italian Cuisine” in Japan and will include the Italian Ambassador, Giorgio Starace and the CEO of Veronafiere, Giovanni Mantovani.