‘In the past, wine was a product for the table, accompanying food. Then wine became more and more of a luxury, and now it is considered to be a supreme delight,” says Giovanni Sacchi, director of the Italian Institute Foreign Trade, Bulgaria.

“It seems that consumers are giving up the classical, old wines. They are ready to experiment with new tastes and brands,” he says of recent trends in the Italian market.
Italian growers began planting internationally familiar grapes in earnest during the latter part of the 20th century to make a name on the international market. “These grapes may or may not have been well-suited to the climate and terrain, resulting in less than desirable wines. Now, growers are returning to the grapes that previous generations planted, which were typically much better adapted to the area in question - after all, growers have spent centuries researching what to plant where in Italy.”

Now, globalisation offers strategic opportunities for the Italian food and beverage industry. “In order to be adequately represented on the global market, the Italian beverage industry had to act with ‘one voice’” and to form a united strategy for the promotion and support of the image of one sector, which consumers should consider to be “a protagonist of the table”, says Sacchi. This was the idea behind the creation of Buonitalia, a collaboration between the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade and UNIONCAMERE. Buonitalia works together with businesses to provide various types of support and to assist the increase of the competitiveness of companies.

Wines are now one of the “core Italian export goods”, along with pasta, olive oil and cheeses. “Italian producers have moved rapidly to the forefront of world enology, improving techniques to create wines of undeniable class in every region, north and south. Italians over the centuries have pioneered laws to control the origins and protect the names of wines. This heritage is alive today in the DOC/DOCG classification system. From Barolo and Lambrusco to Marsala and Soave, most traditional high-quality Italian wines are produced in limited DOC or DOCG areas, according to strict regulations. Italy also has 460 types of wine certificated by EU.”

But it has not always been so. “In the past, it was sometimes said for a joke that Italians kept their best wines to themselves while supplying foreign markets with tasty but anonymous vino. But markets have changed-!” says Sacchi. He attributes Italy’s “glowing reputation” for wine not only to the fact that it produces and exports more than any other country, but to the fact that “it offers the greatest variety of types, ranging through nearly every colour, flavor and style imaginable. Experts increasingly rate Italy’s premier wines among the world’s finest.” Many of the noblest, he says, originate in the more than 300 zones officially classified as DOC or DOCG-or, more recently, in areas recognised for typical wines under IGT. “But a number of special wines carry their own proudly individualistic identities. The top two regions for red wines are Piedmont and Tuscany, while Friuli leads the country in quality white wine production.”

Sacchi lists some of the best known brands of Italian wine, in logical order of the sequence through a meal:
Dry sparkling wines: Asti
White wines: Vernaccia di San Gimignano
Red wines: Chianti Classico and Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Abruzzo region, Barolo from Piedmont
Dessert wines: Asti

Wine is big business in Italy, with 770 000 Italian companies working in the sector and a turnover of about nine billion euro a year, of which 2.7 billion is from export.

Italian wines are exported in 175 countries in the world. Germany, the US and the UK are the leading import partners in the sector. Germany was the biggest importer of 2005, with five million hectolitres of Italian wine, for 700 million euro, while the USA is “the best connoisseur of Italian wines of high quality” - the US imported two million hectolitres for 700 million euro last year. The other traditional markets for Italian wines are Switzerland, Holland, Canada, Japan and Austria. Sacchi notes a surprising development last year, when the Czech republic doubled the quantity of wine it imported from Italy. He lists Ireland, Denmark, and Central Eastern Europe as emerging markets.

So what can Bulgaria learn from this thriving market? “Bulgaria has very good wines,” says Sacchi. “I think that combining the old Bulgarian and European grapes with modern techniques in both the field and the cellar is a good strategy that Bulgarian producers are following.”

He notes as an area for attention the importance of presentation, and the culture of how wine is offered in stores or in cellars. “Wine bottles should be in the right setting. This allows the consumer to immediately realise that there is thought and care focused on providing a great in-store experience.”

There are also opportunities in the field of wine tourism and travel. “In Europe and in the US, it is very common to plan your holidays around your favourite wines. Bulgaria has to develop wine tourism, you have to map your own Bulgarian wine ways, which will allow tourists to explore the country while learning more about the grape of their choice.”

Sacchi is optimistic about the future of Bulgarian wines. “I like Bulgarian wines. You have traditions in this field and some typical vines such as Mavrud or Shiroka Melnishka loza (Melnik broad-leafed vine). I believe that in the future Bulgarian wines will become increasingly popular, not only for the low price and good quality, but for the special selections which some Bulgarian producers are already creating.”