“Wine2Wine Exhibition” and “Opera Wine” for enthusiasts and business, at the Fair and on line

The first major event of the Italian wine system, post-Covid, developed according to “safe business” security protocols, will open one day to the public and two days dedicated to business. “Wine2wine Exhibition” is the new format of Veronafiere, to be held from November 22nd (the day dedicated to wine lovers and consumers, including direct sales) to November24th. It will be a proper “physical” Italian wine Fair, because business cannot thrive on only digital channels, though they are becoming increasingly essential. As WineNews had written a few days ago, “Opera Wine”(initially postponed to 2021, like Vinitaly), “Wine Spectator’s” great wine tasting event of the top 100 Italian wineries will be held on November 21st, just before the Fair opens. All of these events will take place in Verona, and so the city will return to its role as capital of Italian wine. This will be the first major event in the autumn focused on the wine sector, which unites public institutions, regions and consortia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the foreign trade, ICE-Agency, all involved with Veronafiere in the incoming activities of foreign buyers. Together with the new “Wine2Wine Exhibition”, including three pavilions – and the “walk around tasting” strategy of themes and geographical areas that narrate the names and typologies of Italian wine - the traditional “Wine2Wine Business Forum” will also be on stage, focusing on the post-Covid wine market. It will be a revival of Italian wine and the Fair system, two fundamental assets, as Ministers Di Maio and Bellanova pointed out.
“The wine sector, top of the top of the agro-food sector, and trade fairs used as tools, are the main topics of the Exports Pact that we have signed with 8 Ministries and business organizations. The link between wine and territories is well represented by the hundreds of PDOs and PGIs, our excellent products, which like wine, are the strong points from which Italy will start up again”, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi di Maio. “Re-launch is the key word for the next few months, and your event” added the Minister of Agricultural Policies Teresa Bellanova, “will be one of the first major events where we will re-discover the importance of personal discussions and exchanging ideas. Wine was one of the supply chains that suffered the most from the Pandemic. Covid-19 has forced us to give up many events like Vinitaly, and it is important to pay close attention to a sector that touches all of Italy, which is the history and social seal of the country's rural areas. Just like we recovered and bounced back from the methanol scandal, we will do it again, and be better. Italy is a wine superpower and the merit goes to the passion of thousands of companies and winemakers who bottle poetry. 12 billion euros in turnover in the sector is tangible proof of this, and 50% is exports, which is the reason why I have signed the Exports Pact with great conviction, because now more than ever we need to consolidate markets and open new ones. To help out the sector, we have allotted 100 million euros for the green harvest, and we have reached an agreement with the Regions in the amount of 50 million euros for crisis distillation. We are certain that wine will be a pivotal contribution to restart the country”.
Wine, therefore, will mark restarting the Italian Trade Fair sector, as the president of Veronafiere, Maurizio Danese pointed out in the online presentation the director of Tg2, Gennaro Sangiuliano coordinated: “We have been overwhelmed by a health pandemic that has become economic”, said Danese, “and we are honored to offer the wine world a new product, conceived in a totally different way than a few months ago. The fairs were affected by a major crisis in the first quarter, following two exceptional months. We closed the first quarter at -40%, the second quarter at -100%, and the year will close at -50 / -60%. To revive the economy, as Minister Di Maio said, we need to implement a system action. In the Exports Pact, Fairs are to be used as an industrial policy tool. SMEs have declared that 75% of exports come from contacts made at the Fair. Veronafiere was created for wine and we are grateful to this sector; therefore, we immediately worked on the “new normal” with this product, which is “Wine2Wine Exhibition”, to prepare ourselves for companies and help them in difficult moments. Digital is fundamental, but it must go together with physical presence. In the 2019-2022 business plan, we had already calculated important investments, the “digital transformation” chapter prevailed, and we were prepared for it”.
The “Wine2Wine Exhibition”, added Giovanni Mantovani, managing director of Veronafiere, “was created through listening to the needs of the companies as well as needing to respond to the challenges the Pandemic has generated. Wine is an extraordinary expression of Made in Italy. In 2019, exports grew to 6.4 billion euros, and though the first two months of 2020 had started out well, the scenario then changed radically. Ho.Re.Ca., the on market, has closed the world over, and instead it is a key channel for positioning Italian wine. International markets have been extensively redefined, and we will have to follow very closely what happens from now on. We lost the Vinitaly fair, as well as other international events, and losing these events has led to quite a few problems on the markets. The “Wine2Wine Exhibition” was created to help re-launch companies, and to offer the first event of the year directed primarily towards innovative business. We have incorporated all the know-how of Vinitaly, which is a guarantee for the entire sector”.
The event will combine physical presence and the digital world, thereby tracing the route for the future. It has been designed to help business on both the Italian and international markets, through the support of ICE, as the president Carlo Maria Ferro, explained, “data up to April 2020, at least outside the EU, tell us that wine has grown, but we know that when we add data from May and June 2020, we will lean heavily to the negative. We are committed to standing beside the companies, and are increasingly convinced that the physical fair is vital, because business is necessarily made up of human relationships, and must become an all year round tool living and creating a network of constantly active businesses, for which digital is a key tool. To restart the country, we must have determination, system and vision, organization and resources, research and development, and all of these things must be present even at this stage. The country system must be central, especially regarding SMEs, for which we have made many agency services free of charge. This crisis must be an opportunity to start over, and to understand what the future will be.”
In the vision of Vinitaly and Veronafiere, the future will be more and more a combination of physical and digital. “Wine2Wine will be unique from the point of view of its format, putting Italian wine at the center of the stage and international markets after this emergency period. The format is innovative, dynamic, digital and native in an environment that strongly combines physical presence and virtual”, explained Mantovani, “aiming to start up the engines of Italian and world markets. It will not be just an event in November, but a path that starting from today will have an approach providing a lot of promotion on digital channels, and professional online events, including traders and buyers from different countries, which will then physically go to Verona in November. We are convinced that in order to really restart the economy the relationship activity on the markets should not be “occasional”, but rather a system that works all year round, which is our aim in supporting all of our events. This will also apply to “Wine2Wine”, where there will be moments dedicated to consumers, others to business, and others still to meet with world medias. During the lockdown we have strengthened many of the Veronafiere and Vinitaly networks, therefore, we will invite professionals from all the markets around the world together with ICE to OperaWine, the top event promoting Italian wine. In addition, the major international newspapers, such as Decanter and Falstaff, and more will also be there. Further, “Wine2Wine” will also be the first opportunity to meet with the “Ambassadors”, trained over the years by the “Vinitaly International Academy”. We will be collecting the fruits that have already been sown and putting them into a system, in the vision of the fair as a tool in which the contents serving companies will be central. To mention some examples are, updates on regulations, certifications, how to access individual markets, as well as tools for analyzing and understanding the markets themselves. Now we can see that world scenarios will change even faster than before, and that companies will definitely need adequate tools to face the world”.