Lorenzo Biscontin
Last year we carried out our first “investigation” by asking two questions, the same for everyone, to people in the wine business. The questions were how they saw the market in 2023 and how to involve young people more and better in wine.
The choice to ask everyone the same questions allowed us to highlight the different ideas and opinions on two key topics for the sector.
You can find the video interviews in the on-demand section of the events room of our metaverse.
Given the interest received last year, we decided to carry out our own survey this year too and the two questions for 2024 are:
– What is the biggest threat to wine today?
– What is the greatest opportunity?
Like last year, we started at ProWein, dedicating ourselves mainly to foreign operators, and we will continue at Vinitaly, where we will interview Italian ones.
We heard from some wineries, but, above all, we interviewed the managers of national associations and bodies to speak with those who hold a role that entails a broad vision of the market.
It would take a long time to mention all those who dedicated some of their time to answering our questions, but we want to thank them publicly here and remind you that you can find the video interviews on our social networks.
We recommend going and looking at them because the answers collected already provide some interesting information.
Operators around the world agree that the two main threats facing wine today are climate change and declining consumption. What changes is the priority since in the “new world” countries climate change is indicated as the first threat and the decline in consumption is the second, while in Europe the order is reversed.
However, the responses regarding the main opportunity are more heterogeneous, for which environmental sustainability, the intrinsic ability of wine to connect and involve people, premiumization, NOLO wines and innovation to intercept new niches and new consumption models are cited.
The best summary in this sense was probably given by Paul Turale, General Manager Marketing of Wine Australian: “… providing a product, whatever it may be, that is actually meeting the needs of the consumer rather than meeting what a wine maker might want to drink”.
What will the Italian wine sector tell us? We’ll find out in a few days at Vinitaly.