When young producers talk about young consumers, downsizing wine challenges

Young people drink wine, but are intimidated by its language; young people are curious about wine, but seek information that is accurate, truthful, and easy to understand; young people make wine, and link it to respect for the land, the environment, and people. But above all, young people seek lightness: in being together, in sharing, in awareness, in exchanging opinions, in deepening and understanding. It is a question of approach, then. The problems are there, they are obvious and need to be addressed, but the method they choose to use includes smiling seriousness and optimism; not drama, alarmism and self-celebration. It seems that the world can breathe a sigh of relief, in short, to hear the talk “The World of Wine Told by Those Who Will Make It”, promoted, yesterday, by “Civiltà del bere”, at “VinoVip al Forte”, at Villa Bertelli, in Forte dei Marmi, Versilia. And where, with the editor of the historic magazine Alessandro Torcoli, young and very young people who design the new forms of Italian wine, from the side of production, communication and sales, from content creator Ilaria Cappuccini, to Tuscan producer Elena Casadei, from Paolo Porfidio, sommelier (and enologist) of the Terrazza Gallia restaurant in Milan, to the Valdostan producer Alessandro Rosset, with industry journalist Francesca Luna Noce, were confronted.
A two-day “maritime” meeting - now in edition no. 3 after those of 2018 and 2023 and alongside the mountain version in Cortina organized every two years since 1997 - studded with wine insights and tastings with Italy’s best-known brands - from Marchesi Antinori to Argiolas, from Berlucchi to Nicola Biasi, from Bortolomiol to Félsina, from Tenute Folonari to Fontanafredda, from Fonzone to Herita Marzotto Wine Estates, from Cantine Lunae to Masciarelli, from Masi Agricola to Mezzacorona, from Nino Franco to Pasqua, from Pio Cesare to Poggio al Tesoro (Marilisa Allegrini), from Quintodecimo to San Michele Appiano, from Sartori to Torre Rosazza, from Umani Ronchi to Velenosi, from Venica & Venica to Zorzettig, among others - between the focus on the white fine wines of Italy curated by Aldo Fiordelli, and the not-to-be-missed final tasting open to the public of the “VinoVip” Grand Tasting, and to the Pino Khail Award “for the enhancement of Italian wine”, named after the founder of “Civiltà del bere”, presented to Professor Luigi Moio, for years the head of the world’s top wine institution, the OIV (International Organization of Vine and Wine).
Back to the debate, Alessandro Rosset, 26 years old and fourth generation in the forces at the Aosta Valley family business Rosset Terroir and Distillerie Saint Roch Levi Ottoz, pointed out that “two are in my opinion the current hot topics: sustainability (as overused a term as almost as much as “resilience”) and communication”. Sustainability is now inescapable and 360-degree - so also social - not only because a market made up of increasingly aware consumers demands it, but especially because farmers themselves experience firsthand the damage or benefits they cause with their actions. “This gives farmers a basic credibility, since they personally suffer the consequences of the climate emergency and have the first interest in keeping the environment intact”, argues Rosset, who also explains the paradoxical situation of winegrowers, who are reactive in reacting to the climate emergency: some of their decisions can lead them to be “illegal” with respect to the rules of the specifications, which are too rigid and slow in accommodating solutions that instead need fast time frames. Finally, the vision and choices of companies, concludes Alessandro Rosset, must be conveyed with honesty and truth to those who listen to them, in order to keep consumers' trust intact toward producers and the entire sector. Elena Casadei, third generation of Casadei producers, at the helm of the wine project “Le Anfore” by Elena Casadei in Pontassieve, Florence, takes up the theme of sustainability launched by her colleague Rosset and explains its declination: “We are today suffering the choices made in the past. So we have to take the past and ferry it into the future, learning from the mistakes made. We have understood that the soil is alive and has been welcoming life for millennia. We have to respect it and keep it intact, and that means, then, finding quality in the wine. We do this by taking up the good practices of the past, deepened and refined with the knowledge we have achieved today”. With the soil, of course, but also for the winemaking part, which Elena pours over the amphorae, a container of centuries-old tradition that she believes, by subtraction, best conveys the terroir. “Of course, there is a lot of technique and knowledge. But there is the thrill of working with ever-changing conditions each year, which we want to be recognizable of the wine, along with the terroir and the grape variety. Or the excitement of discovering a forgotten grape variety that has endured for centuries in one place and has something to tell. In short, there must also be the passion and soul of the producer. If I had not felt enthusiasm that first time in the winery, I would not be on a stage today talking about the experiences I have gathered in these first ten vintages”. According to Casadei, Sangiovese in amphora has an immediacy that allows her to tell the story of her work and her territory with freshness, to open up a world that is quite closed to the amazement of consumers: “once I have their attention and understanding, I can accompany them to taste the tradition: the Sangiovese aged two in my father’s wooden barrels”.
Between agronomy and enology, and all the conditions and choices that finally lead to the result in the glass, the things to be told are endless. Having 30 seconds to concentrate so much content in front of a customer at the restaurant who has to choose a wine to go with the meal, is not at all easy. Paolo Porfidio, head sommelier at only 29 years of age of the prestigious Milan restaurant “Terrazza Gallia” and head of the project “Somm is the future” to enhance the figure of the sommelier (Porfidio is also an oenologist), knows this well. “Our job is to do what the producer would do if he were present: convey his philosophy in a streamlined, effective, yet exciting way, without going into technicalities except in the case of experienced customers. So we have to understand who we are dealing with, whether they are people who want to stay in their comfort zone or are willing to experiment, we have to welcome and not overwhelm, be friendly and not rigid”. There is, in fact, a substantial difference in the way young customers approach themselves, Porfidio records: “they are more curious, inclined to discover new things and trust the sommelier; but, most importantly, they are not brand-oriented and do not have pre-formed ideas. They look for real and authentic stories, not necessarily beautiful and glossy”. The “Somm is the future” project was born precisely out of the realization that the role of the sommelier can be crucial in (re)bringing people closer to wine, even through commingling (as with mixology). And comparison among colleagues is essential. “Many associations have sprung up over the years, fortunately, that have made our figure grow, but like the wine world, they have closed in on themselves: the project wants to put the different souls of the sector back in communication, to create a community and grow together. We already gather 400 sommeliers around the world, just by word of mouth. There is a need for a truer, real and deeper sharing”.
The theme of authenticity in storytelling, then, returns and is expanded upon by Ilaria Cappuccini, a Rimini-based under-30 food and wine digital creator and creator of content on food and wine on her Instagram profile @just.saywine (169,000 followers), but also with significant university studies and master’s degrees. Similarly to sommelier-winemaker Porfidio, she tries to synthesize in a short time the information she wants to communicate by trying to use a “pop”, engaging and fast language: “On social you don’t have much time to go in depth, but you can give context, which is what young people are interested in. Who drink wine: maybe they are afraid to talk about it and feel inadequate, but they drink it and are intrigued by it”. And social media, which is a public square, is a perfect tool to reach non-connoisseurs, attract their attention and inform them. According to Cappuccini, “Wine is culture and has always been part of our lives. In Georgia, where I was recently, they always talk about wine, which is part of their sociality, but without ever being a protagonist. They have an almost spiritual approach even with their amphorae, and their storytelling is very engaging. Even if the wines don’t completely meet one’s taste, you end up liking them because you get attached to the people and therefore to what they do”. It is the relationship that is created, then, that drives attention and interest. And that is precisely why Cappuccini is not frightened by the advent of Ai: because as worrying as it is to have to deal with virtually created and unreal video images and text, the personal and real relationship between communicator and reader, between the person asking and the person explaining, remains irreplaceable and irreplicable.
Francesca Luna Noce, class of 1995, an Enology graduate and freelance food, blending and spirits journalist for several newspapers, recalls hearing since her graduation in 2018 that the world of journalism is in crisis (in an audio talk): “but food and wine journalism is not in crisis of content: if anything, it is in crisis of credibility. Knowing is not enough: we need to generate trust to attract the interest of those who read us. For years there has been a self-referential litany that has excluded people, including young people, who instead want to feel involved through values and facts of impact”. So it is not enough to be superficial and just copy and paste or blindly rely on the use of Artificial Intelligence. There are people today who boldly decide to talk about policy or bold choices-“because insights are never the enemy of accessibility”, according to Noce. The blending industry, according to her, is a perfect example of this: it does not have by far the same narrative structure as wine, yet it is wildly popular, thanks to a fresher and lighter, but no less effective, narrative. The “how”, in short, can make a difference, but “without forgetting that we also have the privilege and responsibility of choosing ‘what to communicate”, Noce concludes.
Among the testimonies were those of producers famous for breaking the mould. Like Nicola Biasi, oenologist and among the first producers to focus on Piwi resistant vines, according to whom we should overcome the protagonism of vines to speak only of territory: “a vine is only a means, like soil or a barrel: useful to convey a territory. One should not choose a grape variety by tradition, but the grape variety that best expresses itself in that territory”. An out-of-the-box idea, which is also meant to be a response to the climate emergency and the challenges the wine world is facing: if the conditions of a territory change, one must be ready to change the means that best express it, including the grape variety: because the only goal is to make a good wine. For Anna Balbinot, the new generation of “Le Manzane” in Conegliano Valdobbiadene, which focuses on solidarity, a sense of community and belonging to the area, to communicate the uniqueness of its hills in a sea of Prosecco: “We founded the Young Club Conegliano Valdobbiadene to support each other and find new ideas. We also compare ourselves with young people from other European territories. We want to make understandable to our generation of consumers the difference between Docg and Doc, between the different dosages, our long tradition. We want to amaze tourists with the unexpected beauty of our territory; and being a Unesco territory helps us a lot”. Finally, Riccardo Pasqua, the latest generation of a family that has made the “unusual” in its use of images, words and wine a trademark: “It was 2011 when I realized, while explaining the centuries-old technique of appassimento to potential clients in Illinois, that they had no idea where Italy was. I was getting lost in precious details when the context was completely missing”. Since then, Pasqua has embarked on a communication campaign that aims for “unconventionality”, leveraging 100 years of history, telling beautiful and true culture and stories in a more appealing and winking language.