Ep. 2068 Italian Wine Trends with Jeremy Hart Pt. 2 | Masterclass US Wine Market With Juliana Colangelo

Who wants to be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Join an exclusive network of four hundred Italian wine ambassadors across forty eight countries. Vineetly International Academy is coming to Chicago on October nineteenth is twenty first. And while Mati Kazakhstan from November sixteenth to eighteenth. Don't miss out. Register now at Vineeti dot com. Welcome to Mastercost US Market with me, Juliana Colangelo. This show has been designed to demystify the US market for Italian wineries through interviews of experts in sales and distribution, social media, communications, and so much more. We will quiz each of our esteemed guests at the end of each episode to solidify the lessons that we've learned to sharpen your pencils, get out your notebooks, and join us each week to learn more about the US market. Hello. Welcome to Masterclass US wine market. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Jeremy Hart back to the Italian wine podcast for part two of our three part series on Italian wine trends and the on premise with Jeremy and his data at somme dot ai. Welcome back to the show, Jeremy. It's great to have you here again. Pleasure of Venice to be back. Absolutely. So part one, we focus on trends in Italian red wine and the on premise. And for part two, a very fitting topic, we're gonna be talking about island wines as we head into the thick of these summer weeks in in the second half of August. We probably wish we're all sitting on the beaches of some Italian islands, but we're specifically gonna be focusing today on the wines from Sardinia and Sicily. Jeremy, for starters, you know, I was a bit surprised. I have to admit when you proposed this topic. It wasn't what I was expecting. So tell me a little bit about why you chose, this topic to focus on for the second part of our series. Well, I've always been a huge fan of, sardinia. Like, just in general, I think it's, I think it's underrepresented. I think that the wines, I'm a big Gernache guy. Right? So if you're looking at Canada now, like, stylistically, but it's very close to me and then also like Vermentino's kind of king for Italian White to cross italy. It's not super translated here in the US, but the people that get behind it understand it. A little bit more personality kind of in general. And then the other big piece is that, you know, Sicily's on fire. And so between those two things, I think that there's a pretty compelling story. Absolutely. Sicily is definitely on fire. And then they're not to mention some super super interesting wines. Coming out of, Sardinia as well. So, Jeremy, our three key takeaways for today's episode and what we really wanna focus on in our conversation is number one, what types of Sardinian and Sisonia wines are trending in the on premise in the US market? Number two, where in the US regionally are we seeing some of these categories really take off and and on wireless and and on premise? And finally, what do you attribute this growth to? And what do you see as some of the future potential opportunities for the wines of Sicily and Sardinia. So for starters, you know, especially Sardinia is a bit niche. So where are you seeing these wines really take off in restaurants in the US? It's gonna be the bread and butter of Canal and Vermartino. Right? And so I think the affordability of it, I remember like, I don't know, like eight years ago or so. I just remember seeing this like flood of Malapuchiano across by the glass list and you saw it in like new American restaurants. It wasn't just Italian. You know, and then the piggyback on the back of that was Canada now, you know, a couple years later. I think that that's still taking place. Vermitino is definitely correct that as well. So between those two, you're you're you're seeing a lot more representation. And typically if you see one of those two on a wine list and maybe it's a small win wine list, maybe there's fifty selections. One of those two of their on that wine list are typically being poured. So there's a ton of value that is also representation of their They're authenticity. They taste like where they're from. They're very unique in style, I think. And, they're just crushable. You know, either one that can be chilled. You know, variety of foods, you know, they're nice ones. Really beautiful market. Definitely. Preciable for sure, especially, you know, all those whites. So how about, you know, you know, regionally in the US? Like, where are you seeing the most placements on wireless of wines from Sicily in Sardinia. As far as for cities, it's not just the coast anymore. Right? And so, like, if you wanna go in here, if you wanna understand it by, you know, number of accounts or things like that, obviously, like New York is always gonna be number one. Right? Sysco's there. Brooklyn's there. The neat thing is, like, you know, Chicago, obviously in the middle, but that's like a little different. Denver's in the top ten. Right? Wow. That's interesting. Portland's in the top ten. Which is very interesting. Right? Philadelphia, Houston, Austin. These are all very represented very much in the middle. I I I think the penetration is gonna gone, you know, everywhere as far as you can understand where these guys are very well represented. You wanna look at it by placements, I'll just give you the top ten real quick. You got New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, DC. Right? After that, you got Brooklyn, West, Houston, Dallas, and so in Portland, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Denver, but these are all places that have over three hundred placements on their wine list. The ones I'm still naming now Atlanta, San Diego. Right? And so this isn't just, you know, there's a handful here or maybe there's three accounts that support them in a huge way. Maybe one of the people is from Sicily or Sardinia, right? This kind of transcends all that, which is really great to see. So you're seeing, you know, the coastal cities you would expect, but also Texas, which is interesting for these smaller regions like, you know, Sardinia, and I don't know. It essentially can call a small region anymore. I mean, it certainly growing quite a bit. And and looking at the data, it looks like, you know, looking at the numbers where for sicilian and sicily holds the top three spots in terms of placements on wine list. So talk to us a little bit about what types of sicilian wines and maybe what some of the producers that are really trending in restaurants right now in the US. For Sicily, let me go right here. I'm doing this as we speak live too. I love I love how easy your data is to pull up the fact that you can do that. Alright. First, Sicily, let's go look at it by producer really quick. Another thing I was looking at prior to, you asked me this question was also bridally. Right? Because that's, you know, we're talking about that in the last episode. But, as far as for red, Norelle de Avila was actually number one for both. Right? Norella Muschalazis number two. If you wanna look at red blends, that's number three. Norello red blends, number four. Canada now, number four. And then the big one I thought was pretty interesting was for potos, number six. Cool. It's really kinda grown and we're looking at it by red here as far as for whites, for the most placed. And I'll jump down real quick, and I'll get into the actual, appalachians here in just a second. Vermentino, number one. And then, one of the ones I really on here is the Caricante. And Caricante gets a good price. On a average wine list, it's it's one of the best priced whites. It's eighty bucks. It's the average wine list price in America for Caricante. Very bold. Yeah. Alright. Let me go ahead and jump up here real quick. Alright. So, as far as by producer from Sicily, as far as being the most placed, you have, Donna Fogada. Mhmm. It's been for one. Yep. Okay. So, that if I got is number one about eight ten replacements across US and about, seven hundred sixty five accounts. Plinette is number two. They're in more accounts. They're in eight hundred and forty five accounts. So that'd be the most, representative brand in accounts. But as far as placements, they're about a hundred placements less. And so Donna forgot to, whenever they get a placement, typically, people tend to lean in a little bit more and carry more than one of their wines. Which is a nice little thing to know. Other producers on here, Taranera, Banati. Okay. Oh my god. Okeypinky. Yes. Not to be confused with the peachy, the the important distributor. Okeeping tea. Yes. Of course. Those wines are wonderful. Yeah. Just kind of across the board. Some of the ones that are the most growth the last year. Banati is number one as far as the most growth. They're up eleven percent in the last year. Wow. Which wine specifically from Benati? Is it that in Rosa or, you know, they make white and rose as well? Yeah. They're up a hundred and sixty six placements. And so as far as the number one wine from those guys, let's see here in the morning growth. It's gonna be the, actually, that in a row. Talked about in part one of the series, you know, the red ones from Italy are really seeing a lot of a lot of trends there. So that that makes a lot of sense. So, you know, let's switch over an island hop to Sardinia. What are some of the top wines and producers that you're seeing out of Sardinia at restaurants in the US? Yeah. Here. I'm clicking in right now and alright. So here we go. My producer Number one, Salomosa's number two, which is Okay. Surprising. Paul is number three. The number one is, Arjolis. Is that how you're saying? Forget them. Yeah. Arjolas. Yeah. So they're number one. So they have a thousand placements about six hundred accounts. Average price point sixty bucks. That's another thing too. It's just like, I think Sardinia is everything kinda goes towards a premium. You also can kind of piggyback those, certain regions of the qualities there. And it's very high and it's affordable, like, and it's unique to kinda what it does. There's not another producer in Italy that's doing a lot of cannon out. Right? And so those kind of Right. They just come in a niche. Right? They've got a flag in the ground and kinda now. They bet on it and it's paying off. There it is. And so I think that that's like one of those things that, well, we're really kinda carry the island wines. Right? They have the haircut. Like, going once again back to the ride all. Right? These things, there's not another place that's doing a lot of Norello. Right. Now I love Vermitina. Like Vermitina's all obviously all the way through Italy, but not exported. Right? And so, I think that they're gonna really benefit from that over time. What else is in here that's really kind of interesting. As far as the number one SKU in the US for sardinia is gonna be the Aragales, the Vermitina. Yeah. They have about four hundred and thirty eight placements for that in general. And then the really neat thing is that you can also chop stuff up. Besides just looking at it right away, you can also look it up by type. So, I know for both of these, we're basically looking at red and white, but, it's nice to occasionally see if there's anything else that's gonna happen in here as far as Rosier or whatever else it might be. But for the most part, it's gonna be Canada and Vermitina. Canada and Vermitina. Okay. Interesting. And you talked to us a little bit how much are these wines and these categories growing year over year? Like, know, I imagine there's been some interesting growth, which is why you you called out, these categories specifically for this episode, but talk to us a little more specifically about just how much these categories have grown over the last twelve months. Yeah. So if you wanna look at it like overall, you're looking at about ten percent growth the last two years across the board for both. Right? So, like, you can you can chop that up by appalachian, look at it lots of different ways. Yeah. That's huge. That's that's tremendous. And is that more coming from Sicily, I'd imagine, or how are you seeing that growth? You know? It's more from it's more from Sicily. It's been a little bit more steady rise, you know, over time as far as for Sardinia. But, I think the really interesting thing with kinda looking at this stuff is with big reds, with a lot of the other categories in Italy, you will see them grow substantially and they can scale and go wide on off premise in retail. Right? With these two categories for island wines. They're still in that that phase to where they're on premise. These are restaurant driven wines. I don't know how many people are going to the store to buy a lot of Vermitino or Canon or whatever it might be. As they might call a Kiyani or you know, the more kind of established regions. So it's really nice to see this kind of growth in on premise. You know what I mean? Because at besides it's just people getting behind it and porn it. It's also people that are obviously, you know, enjoying them and other places are caring. Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean, the old adage is that, you know, you build a category, you build a brand on the on premise where someone can discover something new. They can be taught something by the Somoye. They can discover. Right? They can buy a glass instead of investing in an entire bottle. So It is a really important space in which to potentially grow and introduce new categories and new new producers. And sounds like, you know, we're really seeing that come to life and and seeing a really strong example of that with Sicily and all of growth because now especially with Sicily, we've seen that trickle down and out into the consumer and into retail as well. So what do you think has contributed to the rise and popularity of these wines from Sicily and Sardania on premise? Are some of the factors that you would attribute this success and growth to? I think a lot of it has been, some of the natural wine producers, you know, initially kinda get behind it with Frank and whatnot. Mhmm. And then the other thing that has been kind of very interesting is that it's just that kinda hit a wave between you know white lotus and you know, there's now more of a kind of a fascination there, you know, and there's a lot of variety that's affordable. It's a it's a very unique experience when you can get a nice ball of wine from an authentic place and, like, it doesn't taste like exactly what it's supposed to taste like. I think that that's gone a long way as far as people come out of the pandemic. And a lot of people, like you said, with White Lotus, maybe more travel and they come back from a place as beautiful as Sicily or Suradinian. They wanna drink those wines. They wanna a little sip of their vacation to recreate those memories that they had when they were in the place. So what do you think maybe is the future for the wines of Sicily and Sardinia based on the data you're seeing from some of that AI? I think it's gonna lean towards white in the future. I really do. I think that, between Carapante and Vermentino, there's gonna be a really compelling story for premium whites from those two places. You know, even premium invite affordable at a hundred bucks on a wine list, you know, as everything's tilted and started to rise. If you can get a really great bottle of wine for that product. For value. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. So the white wines of the region for sure. And and, you know, again, I know a lot of your data is pointing towards the popular red wine as we talked about in part one of this series, but, you know, as you said, the value here is is really tremendous for the whole category from both Sicily and and Sardinia. Yeah. Anything else Jeremy that you wanna talk about or chat about as it relates to wines from Sicily and Sardinia and the data you're seeing from Somda AI? I think it would be really interesting to see more of these producers do consorts of events in the US. You know what I mean? Like, I really do. I think collectively kind of across the board, you know, it's so many people get them in doses. You know what I mean? Is if if everyone can kinda see it as a whole, that's one of the things I've kinda my former eyes of working in the, you know, the import side with a importer. You know what I mean? You taste so many at one point in time. You're always comparing them against each other. It's a really eye opening experience when you get like three or four of them open at one time or a whole room or whatever it might be. And so it's just you really buy in. I think more and more of our time, you know, these are gonna be more embraced and more common. Absolutely. Great. Well, Jeremy, thank you again. That's part two of our series on on premise trends in Italian wine in the US market with Jeremy Hart of Psalm dot ai. And once again, how can our listeners follow along and connect with you, Jeremy, if they're not already following you. Yeah. Find me on LinkedIn and Jeremy Hart on LinkedIn. You'll, you know, love to to show you what we do. And I do all kinds of neat little know, things I find in data, do a little presentations on there often. And so, yeah, glad to see you there. Fantastic. Thank you, Jeremy. And that does it for part two of our three part series on master class US wine market with Jeremy Hart of Sonde. AI. Stay tuned for part three. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned each week for new episodes of Master Class US wine market with me, Juliana Colangelo. And remember if you enjoyed today's show, Hit the like and follow buttons wherever you get your podcasts.