Creating value and working as a system: the challenges of Italian wine in the post-pandemic

The pandemic has undoubtedly changed the balance between wine distribution channels, created different opportunities for consumption, opened up new perspectives and accelerated changes already underway. But in the end, the big issues, the big challenges for Italian wine, are still the same: the construction of an added value that is still far from the levels of others, the French in the lead; the “teamwork”, or “system”, whatever you want to call it, between companies, territories and players in the supply chain; better telling the great variety, richness and diversity of Italian wine, increasingly linked to the value of Made in Italy as an “umbrella”, and in a transversal way to the history, beauty and experientiality that territories will have to live more and more with in the future; to make managerial skills grow within an entrepreneurial system that is very, or too, fragmented; to find new ways of communicating with an audience that is less and less “business” and more and more “consumer”, but made up of many different consumers depending on the market. These challenges are therefore exactly those that were on the table before the arrival of Covid-19 more or less drastically suspended the flow of life in general, and of events “in presence”, which, having restarted somewhat haphazardly with various local initiatives, in these days in some ways mark the restart of national events, such as “Milano Wine Week”, staged from October 2 to 10 in the city of Milan.
“Wine in the Italian wine and food and agricultural sectors is a leading one, the most advanced. We are the first country in the world in terms of production, but we have to become one for the value of our wines, also working on the training of those who sell them, starting with restaurants”, said Coldiretti president Ettore Prandini from Palazzo Bovara. “It is out of place to gloat over the fact that we are the world’s leading producers in terms of quantity”, relaunched Assoenologi president Riccardo Cotarella. “On the contrary, when there is too much product, it depreciates and destroys value. The “consumer-actors”, who are now co-protagonists in the chain, want to know everything about wine; there is a thirst for wine culture to which we must be able to respond. Quality is so obvious that to say that a wine is good is an alarming banality: we must tell the world what Italy’s wine really is because few people know. And perhaps even we don’t realize how much wine is a true flag of our country”. “We have to think that we have a large number of different stories that we can unite and combine in different ways depending on the listener, the market. The territories represent something unique, through the designations, and this is what we must tell”, added Federdoc president Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, emphasizing that, despite the wine system’s significant resistance to the impact of the pandemic, there are many unresolved issues and many attacks on the system that should not be underestimated, “From the risk that, in the name of a sacrosanct battle for health, a product that is not alcohol but part of our diet and the Mediterranean diet may be penalized, undermining its horizontal promotion in the EU, which is the leading market, or jeopardizing the CMO funds in the framework of the European plan against cancer. And then there is the major issue of protecting the designation system, against which Croatia's request to register Prosek is a frontal attack”.
At the center of it all, or rather, holding it all together, however, is always and above all the value of the territories, as the heads of some of the Consortia involved in the “Wine Districts” in which the “Milano Wine Week” is divided said. Over time, the Conegliano Valdobbiadene hills have managed to maintain beauty and naturalness that is now protected by UNESCO”, recalled Elvira Bortolomiol, president of the Consortium of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, “and man has been able to maintain the balance with heroic work. Wine has been the driving force behind the evolution of the territory, for the entire community that has brought a product to the world that is appreciated for its naturalness and quality. In this area, it is the community that has made and continues to make the difference, the ability to work as a team: we have opened up to experiential tourism, made up of people who come not only to taste quality wine but to experience it. With the Unesco Hills Association we are creating a path that will cross the entire denomination, looking not only at wine but also at the landscape, religious aspects and so on. Uniqueness, beauty and territory are our keywords”. “The name Franciacorta has existed for a thousand years, and having it linked to wine has been fundamental”, added Silvano Brescianini, president of the Franciacorta Consortium, “but we still have to work on the territory, because no matter how hard we try, the demand for services is growing. It’s not enough to open wineries, we need a collective effort from institutions, businesses and catering infrastructures. We Italians are running a risk, because we were born into beauty, we are addicted to it, but we cannot take it for granted. There are incredible stories behind a parish church, behind a landscape, and we must tell them, better than we are doing anyway”. “We need to create synergies with the restaurant and hotel sectors to respond to the need for wine tourism, which is becoming increasingly important in terms of promoting wine and the territory”, added Alberto Zenato, vice-president of the Lugana Consortium, “because tourists who drink our wines here then want to relive the experience by buying them in their own country when they return home”.
But constant and synergic work is needed, because “in order to promote wine and territories, there is no one recipe that fits all, but it is a continuous sowing”, added Carlo Veronese, director of the Consorzio dei Vini dell’Oltrepò, “and we are sowing a lot, we are recreating a strong territorial identity, with 300 companies working together, which was not taken for granted. The combination of wine and territory is increasingly important”, said Valentino Di Campli, director of the Consorzio Vini d’Abruzzo, “and ours is one of the wine territories with the greatest biodiversity in Italy, from the sea to the mountains at 3,000 meters. But we have to tell the world about ourselves, because few people know us, and in this sense aggregating is fundamental. Without synergies and without the resources that the protection consortia can obtain, for example, little can be done”.
“For years we have had a strategy that is “Prosecco Doc Italian Genio” - said Luca Giavi, director of the Consortium of Prosecco, the driving force behind Italian wine. “We do not sell a product, but what we bring inside a bottle is Italian style, it is another way of seeing wine. Creating a system is possible, as well as necessary. After we launched Prosecco rosè, for example, many people told us that, thanks to this, attention was raised on Italian rosé wines in general, which are often marginalized on the markets. But in order to evolve, we need important regulatory tools that other countries have, and I’m thinking, for example, of the French-style interprofessional system. It is only by working together that we can win, only by starting from Made in Italy, otherwise, we stop at our provincial battles and saying “I am better than”, which, however, no longer works”. Giacomo Bartolommei, vice-president of the Consorzio del Brunello di Montalcino, agrees with this vision: “Ours is a small but great territory, made up of 30,000 hectares, 3,500 of which are vineyards. But in the markets of the world and to those who visit our territory from all over the world we do not only bring our great wine, but what we are, our style, our cuisine, we sell an experience. But we must always start from Made in Italy first, in a cohesive manner, and then arrive at the territory”. “We have to be united, dialogue, have a few clear infrastructures to turn to, and then work as a system, tell what we have but also accompany our visitors, and customers and tourists from our neighborhood, to make them taste not only ours but also their wine”, added Stefano Ricagno, vice-president of the Consortium of Asti and Moscato d’Asti Docg.
In short, a real team effort is needed, because although the system as a whole has held up, the pressure is felt strongly, as Marco Alessandro Bani, director of the Consorzio Vino Chianti, testifies: “we have compensated for the drop in export sales by growing on the domestic market during the hardest months of the pandemic, but the large-scale distribution has grown, which gives companies less profitability. And there are some problems on this front”.
And if this is the vision of priorities for the Consortia, the companies add other issues such as the need to know the markets better, to have more prepared managers, to have access to more modern financial instruments and, last but not least, larger size, which does not only mean growing in terms of company size, but also making commercial alliances. “Individualism was a plus in the past, but today it is no longer so,” said Beniamino Garofalo, CEO of the Santa Margherita Group, one of the top players in the Italian wine industry, “because size and presence in the markets is important. Santa Margherita exports to 90 countries and in many of these it is a leader in certain segments. But things are changing, the world of wine is less and less b2b and more and more b2c, the consumer needs to be understood, but more expertise is also needed on how to propose wine in different countries. However, we also need investment in digital technology and infrastructure, and we need everyone’s support. The world of wine is still very atomised, although we are seeing a lot of movement between companies, and investments, that are making people think. Size can make a difference, as can aggregation, which does not always translate into the sale or acquisition of companies. It is possible to use the shoulders of larger colleagues, perhaps create commercial alliances, and have products distributed. It is clear that investments are needed, but they are important and often small companies cannot afford them”.
In this sense, it is clear that new “financial instruments are also very important,” added Riccardo Pasqua, head of Pasqua Vigneti e Cantine, one of the leading companies in the Veneto region and in Italian wine, “to speed up certain processes and also make a generational shift in communication in our sector, which is still very traditional. New energy and skills are needed to understand how to speak to the many different consumers. It is essential to be in more markets, Italian products are already a brand in the world, and in some countries, such as the US, we have a second and third generation of Italian origin that is pushing us. However, there is a big difference between exporting and internationalizing: the second strategy is much more complex, but it allows you to be on the market all the time and to understand the consumer well and immediately”. It is true that there is a management gap in the sector,” added Igor Boccardo, CEO of Genagricola, “but wine is unique, it has very high penetration, it is a product for both men and women, it is convivial and solitary. The entry of capital from outside the sector will give a boost to this managerial evolution, which is fundamental, because the consumer and the market are constantly changing and evolving, and will do so even more rapidly over the next 5-10 years”. It is certainly true that “aggregation and synergy between different realities is fundamental,” added Alberto Serena, head of Montelvini, the reference winery for the Asolo area, “but it is also true that sometimes there are so many different interests that it is not easy to come together. But it is important that the companies grow and make partnership”. In addition to investments, it takes years to emerge, to become a “brand” in the wine market,” recalled Pierluigi Bolla, chairman of Valdo Spumanti, “because of the fragmentation and vastness of the market, which is enormous. New skills are needed, but there is also a major issue, that of generational changeover in companies, which should not be underestimated”. A critical issue, but also a value, if well managed, as Federico Dal Bianco, vice-president of Masottina, one of the most beautiful souls of Prosecco Docg, tells us: “I represent the third generation of the family at the helm of the company, and time has been fundamental for us to put together the 280 hectares of vineyards from which our wines are born”. Because everything, in conclusion, it starts from the earth.