ITALY LOOKS TO EMERGING MARKETS

Published: 23 July, 2008

By Michele Shah

Italy's wine trade fair, Salone del Vino, held on 16-19 November in Turin, attempted to rescue Italy's dwindling wine exports with a fine-tuned workshop focusing on emerging markets. According to ICE's latest export figures for the first half of 2003, Italian wine exports have registered a 4.2% fall, equal to E1,176 million against the 2002 figure of E1,228 million. These can be summarized in two categories: table wine exports have fallen by 27.2% and DOC/DOCG wines by 9.5% in volume. Lingotto Fiere, the organisers of the third edition of Salone del Vino, focused on a specific supply/demand' workshop, inviting 43 buyers from emerging Scandinavian markets and the ex-Communist block. According to the Fiere, traditional European markets such as the UK are presently saturated and German imports of Italian wine are down by 20%. In order to reverse the downtrend, we must look to new markets,' said Marco Zanoni, MD of Lingotto Fiere. With Eastern European countries entering the EU, Italian wine exports to these emerging markets will expand.' Official figures estimate that the two-day workshop covered 924 meetings between 150 Italian producers and 43 selected buyers, generating E7.5 million of new business.

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