July 9 – Two of the primary private consortia for the promotion of Italian wine abroad – the Istituto Grandi Marchi and the Italia del Vino consortium – have submitted a three-year project intervention in the Chinese market for a total investment of €4.7 million to the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry. Compared to individual entrepreneurial or territorial spending, this project brings together key novelty elements, seeking to reverse an extremely complex market situation. Although in recent years the Italian presence has greatly increased in all major exhibitions and events in China, the share of domestic wine market fell, with a contraction from 8% in 2006 to 6% in 2012. During the last year, Italy sold in the world’s largest market in terms of residents and potential only €75 million between bulk and bottled wines. This comes in stark contrast to France’s (€612m), Australia’s (€177m), Chile’s (€114m) and Spain’s (€87m) performances. “This situation is unsustainable – underline the presidents of the two consortia, Piero Antinori and Ettore Nicoletto – and the real risk is to be relegated to even less influential positions. Since Italian wines are successful anywhere in the world for quality, ability to integrate with the local cuisines and price, we believe the problem is in the fragmentation of our overall offer. We’re present in many contexts, but always individually, trying to explain to a not fully formed audience all the complexity of Italian production. It’s a typical case of too much information in too little time.” From this, the new project puts forth a series of innovations aimed at intercepting different audiences: importers and traders; chef and sommelier; consumers… These are institutional, pre-competitive actions not so much targeted at the commercial support of individual brands, but rather designed to properly train all operators in the supply chain, in particular the staff that will explain to the public the characteristics of Italian wines. To achieve this, activities include the publication of an Italian-essential Mandarin dictionary with all key vocabulary, a guide on how to combine traditional Chinese cuisines with Italian wines, and a web platform, always in Mandarin, with the participation of bloggers, journalists and Chinese chefs.
