Com-St-06-04-01-GrandiMarchiENG-1.pdf
A new way of networking and, together, promoting Italian premium wines on merging markets.
Quality wines are not in crisis; instead they continue to be recognized as excellent Made in Italy products and they are moving ahead on foreign markets with results that are truly impressive, especially in some countries. The winds of revival are blowing, after the years of weakness that followed the September 11 tragedy, for those Italian enterprises that have organized to confront together the challenge of competition and new markets, especially in Asia.
That is the case of the “Great Brands” Italian Quality Wines Institute, a consortium created to engage in promotional activities abroad that now has as members 18 leading Italian wine producers representative of the country’s various regions, including Donnafugata, Antinori, Biondi Santi, Ca’ del Bosco, Gaja, Masi, Mastroberardino and Pio Cesare to cite only a few.
In less than a year, the consortium has carried out different missions abroad (Russia, China, Japan, India and the United States), which not only scored major successes with the public, with more than 3,000 highly qualified professionals participating, but also led to the development of a new way of promoting Italian premium wines abroad.
A calendar of imposing initiatives with 500 participants in seminars, including journalists and members of the trade, more than 2,000 professionals attending workshops and a further 500 opinion leaders joining in evening tastings revealed an absolutely new strategy by Italian producers: create teams, maximize resources and accept a common vision of promotional actions.
A common policy that contributes to the burnishing of Italy’s image in emerging markets, guaranteeing processes of penetration coherent with the profile of these estates, which represent an important part of the country’s enological history.
Outstanding results: double digit growth in Donnafugata’s exports to Russia and to the countries of the Far East on which “Great Brands” is focusing its activities.
However, the positive data is not solely limited to those generated in new markets. In the initial months of 2006, growth in orders, although only modest, has resumed in Germany, Switzerland and other northern countries of the old continent. That the wind in this part of the world is changing direction as well is a proposition that the Italian estates hope will be confirmed at the next Vinitaly wine fair in Verona.
“It’s only a question of time,” said Donnafugata’s Antonio Rallo, “when quality is pursued and commercial policies of great coherence are adopted, that favorable results appear. If there is also good teamwork, as we seek to achieve with the ‘Great Brands’ consortium, the reputation of Italian production is certain to gain ground.”
Baldo M. Palermo [email protected] phone +39 0923 724226
Laura Ellwanger: [email protected] phone. +39 0923 724258
Nando Calaciura [email protected] mob. +39 338 3229837
