“We have accomplished a lot, but we still have to work on values”, said Piero Antinori

“I am optimistic about the future of Italian wine, because we have really accomplished a lot, but we have not reached the final goal yet. There is a Tibetan proverb that says, “when you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing”, which applies very well also to the wine world. There is always room for improvement, both quality-wise as well as boosting our product, especially on foreign markets, particularly the emerging ones, and I am thinking above all of Asia and China, which will probably be two of the most important markets in the world ”. These are the words and considerations of Piero Antinori, at the helm of Marchesi Antinori winery, which according to many, has contributed more than all the others to the history of Italian wine in the past 30 years. That is to say, the wine “Renaissance” that took Italian wine from being considered a low-priced and low-quality product, to the excellent drink it is, which has achieved top positions in many markets around the world. “It was a brief period, but because of many factors, the process was gradual”, Piero Antinori explained to WineNews. “First of all, there is the improved quality of our products, because quality is always at the base of everything. The attention wine producers have paid to the quality issue, in other words, trying to produce less wine, but higher quality, since the 1980s, has been one of the key factors in this change. This quality change, though, needed to be communicated, so the role of top journalists was fundamental. Many of them were Italian, some foreign, and one of them was the writer and journalist Burton Anderson (co-author, in 1982, of “Vino. The Wines & Winemakers of Italy”. This was the first book of international caliber that pointed reflectors on international markets, ed.), who was the first foreigner to introduce Italian wine to all the countries around the world, and it was very important for the valorization of Italian wine”. Indeed, the valorization of Italian wine, and its better price positioning, according to Antinori, is one of the most important challenges for the near future of Italian wine. This is also because margins are still important, considering that in the USA , reference market of Italian wine, and the value of one liter of exported Italian wine is 5.8 euros, while France is 9.6 dollars per liter (Nomisma data).