Collectible wines: Tannico focuses on the old vintages of the labels of Italian Wine

Large bottles, rare labels, old vintages: much more than a niche, far from a passing fashion, the passion of the wine lover brings with it increasingly meticulous research, as well as increasingly important spending power. And so, if the world’s wine auctions have invoiced in 2018 467 million euros, 22% more than 2017, it becomes clear that there is plenty of space to grow, for a market with very high added value. Also for online retailers, as Marco Magnocavallo, CEO of Tannico, tells to WineNews, who has “opened” a whole new section a few days ago, “Vini Rari”, a catalog entirely dedicated to collectible bottles, and therefore mainly to old vintages. Well, what does an old vintage mean, and what is a collectible wine? “ a collectible wine - explains Marco Magnocavallo - is certainly a rare wine from an old vintage, but there is no precise time limit: let’s not consider collectible wine as recent labels or labels on the market, it is, therefore, a flexible criteria, which at the moment sees bottles in the catalog from the 1960s to the first decade of the year 2000”.
In other words, to talk about an old vintage you need to have in your hands a bottle that cannot be found in the wine shop, while the collection wines, which can age and enter the list of labels-myth, are not many,“ it is difficult to have a precise number, in Italy we can talk about 70-100 wineries at most, and at this time, the best represented - continues the CEO of Tannico - belong to areas with a high vocation for aging as Bolgheri, with Ornellaia, Sassicaia and Masseto, but also Super Tuscan as Solaia, Tignanello and Montevertine, Piedmont with Gaja, Bruno Giacosa, Conterno (Monfortino), Scavino, Massolino, Brunello di Montalcino, with Biondi Santi, Fattoria dei Barbi, Mastrojanni, Cerbaiona, Trentodoc with Ferrari and Veneto with Quintarelli, Dal Forno and Bertani. And then there are the greats of France, from Champagne with all the most famous houses, such as Dom Perignon, Krug, Louis Roederer, to Bordeaux with Chateau D’Yquem, Chateau La Mission Haut Brion, Chateau Margaux, Chateau Cheval Blanc, to Burgundy with Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and other wineries. The areas of Bolgheri and Champagne are having great success in these first days of opening”.
The most interesting aspect, however, is that the bottles purchased end up on the table, not in the cellar. Thanks to the Sommelier Whatsapp service,” explains Magnocavallo, “we have direct contact with our customers so that we can understand their preferences and needs. We are therefore able to confirm that the majority of purchases are made by wine-lovers who certainly have important collections of historic vintages”. Like the rest of the labels sold by Tannico, “rare bottles come from direct channels: private collections from wineries, private collections that want to lighten their collections, and retailers who in many cases bought bottles in the 1980s and 1990s that have since become rare and precious, but without having the target of interested customers today”. The first few days since its launch - concludes Magnocavallo - have shown that the market certainly lacked an offer of collector’s bottles, but we were surprised by the warm welcome and sales volumes that we recorded. We can assume that in 2020 the section dedicated to “Rare Wines” will be able to participate for 5-10% in the total volumes of Tannico”.