WineNews Analysis – Italian wine, a symbol of world excellence, struggles on the Web. Very few winemakers exploit the potentials of Internet… The best in Italy: Planeta, Donnafugata, Tasca d’Almerita, Santa Margherita, Duca and Florio

There are still too few winemaking companies that have understood the potential of the Internet. The means of communication par excellence in the 21st century, it is exploited in full by only a small circle of Italian producers, and it is difficult to understand why.
Today, Internet means universal accessibility, immediacy, possibilities of a direct relationship between producers and consumers, long distance sales without intermediaries. But these concepts don’t appear to reach the wine barrels and wine cellars that are one of the most convincing ambassadors of Italian excellence. Inconceivable if one considers that Italian wine is feeling ever growing competition from other producing countries, especially in the race to conquer new emerging markets like China and India. Internet would surely constitute a fundamental weapon, a window that is constantly open on the “global village”.
These are the most important observations that www.winenews.it, one of the most clicked on websites on wine communications in Italy, has revealed in the 5th edition of “Cantine in Web 2006 “(Wineries on the Web); a consistent and important assessment of the relationship between wine establishments and the Internet that is still unique in Italy. Anyone from virtually anywhere - at home, in hotels, on trains, with PCs, laptops or even cellular phones - can access an almost infinite and continuously growing quantity of information, services and curiosities from and on every part of the industrialized world.
20 million people habitually use the Internet in Italy today. This is a very large audience, more than 30% of the total population - a very large source of potential consumers who are continuously more demanding. More specifically, according to a study of the 2005 Censis, 36% of Italians aged 14 and up say they use the Internet and 20% do so "at least two or three times a week". This is a 20% increase from the 2001 total and 12% increase for those who use the Internet "regularly". According to more recent statistics from the same source (2006 – obtained with a different method), 40% of the Italian population uses the Internet – 28% use it "at lease three or four times a week", and 22% use it "every day". But a good part of the Italian wine world is just watching for now. Navigating among the more than 2000 wine sites, one can see that something might be changing in this sense, but we are still far from levels of excellence. On the other hand, Italian wine represents this excellence worldwide, as one of the most important ambassadors of Italian products. And this is another reason to keep up with the other symbols of Italian quality such as fashion, cars, furniture, design and boating, just to name a few, which invest in Internet communication and gain valuable results in terms of economics and of appearance.
The majority of Italian wineries are limited to making themselves known by way of outdated sites that are static and have little content matter. Many of them do not offer much more than the usual “About us”, “Products” and “Where we are" sections. This might have been acceptable a few years ago, but not these days, from the time that Internet users have become more demanding and don’t just want information but also given reasons to have faith in a brand. And multimedia and interactivity are often missing – two fundamental mainstays of the Internet today. There are almost no sites that offer direct sales, which is something that goes completely against the trends of what is happening in the e-commerce sector on the whole. This phenomenon is evident especially during the Christmas season: From a study of more than 50 of the main e-commerce operators conducted by the Association of Italian electronic commerce and the Milan Polytechnic School of Management, it appears that between November and December, €877 million was spent via web commerce; this is an increase of 44% from the same period in 2005. This seasonality increases sales an average of more than 20%. Therefore, it seems that Italians choose the Internet more frequently at Christmas-time than during the rest of the year. Despite the fact that Italy is the second-to-last in the European Union for both purchases and sales according to the latest Istat figures, sales in 2006 will reach €4 billion, as predicted in the June forecast. And a growth rate of about 40% is predicted for 2007, with sales of about €5.7 billion. However, from what one sees navigating the Internet, the sphere of Italian wines must still improve a great deal under this point of view.
The top sites of the “Cantine in Web” classification by www.winenews.it are: Planeta, Donnafugata, Tasca d'Almerita, Santa Margherita, Duca di Salaparuta and Cantine Florio. These are the leaders according to the wine-on-line website, which selects the best websites on Italian wines every year. The 2006 "Cantine in Web" list awarded six websites with five "snails": Planeta (www.planeta.it), with an unquestionable first place, Donnafugata (www.donnafugata.it), Tasca d'Almerita (www.tascadalmerita.it ), Santa Margherita (www.santamargherita.it), Duca di Salaparuta (www.duca.it) and Cantine Florio (www.cantineflorio.it). Following, with four "snails": Rapitalà (www.rapitala.it), Paolo e Noemia d'Amico (www.paoloenoemiadamico.it), Caprai (www.arnaldocaprai.it), Cavit (www.cavit.it), Podere Forte (www.podereforte.it), Casale del Giglio (www.casaledelgiglio.it). The list of the twelve best Italian wine sites was made after having monitored more than 2000 from all of the Italian regions. From this initial selection the top hundred were examined and tested by webmasters, graphic designers and copywriters from Milc (www.milc.it), the web company that realized www.winenews.it.
The final 24 sites were evaluated by a group of 10 opinion leaders and journalists from the most important Italian mass-media, that selected the 12 best, assigning the "snails". The fundamental aspects that were taken into consideration for the final decision were the emotive impact, graphics, enjoyability, navigability, contents and updating. Sicily, with six sites in the "Top 12" of the "Cantine in Web" list, remains decisively at the head of the list. What is the reason for this success? Dynamic, fresh and aggressive communication seeks to bring the historic Italian wine regions up-to-date. In fact, the young Sicilian wineries use communication strategies to the fullest; the web sites are not considered a virtual storefront, but the most direct and efficient way to reach the target audience. And so, when describing themselves on their website, they don’t just talk about their products, but about a way of life in which wine is the sum, but not the only significance. There is also art, culture, fashion and land, which are expressed with means (such as images and music) that articulate the entire history of Sicily, and that give modern wine enthusiasts all that they might desire.