Ep. 2513 ITA Masterclass "Startup Italy: Young Producers and the Future of Italian Wine in the U.S." | wine2wine Vinitaly Business Forum

You know, it's competitive out there in distributor portfolios. So finding a partner, I think several of you all said this, finding someone who really understands your story and believes in your brand, I think is first and foremost. Otherwise, it's really hard to get anywhere with a partner that doesn't believe in you. Number two, I think, you know, we have some really great esoteric riddles. We tried a few today as, you know, Metidoclassico from Mio, but we have to figure out ways to make those wines relatable. To the US consumer, and give them language that is understandable as well about those wines. So so dumb it down, I would say. And then, finally, building visibility with limited resources, definitely events like this, and thanks to the support of ETA. For bringing us all together are tremendous opportunities, but also maybe coming together, as a group of producers, pooling resources, there's some other ways to, maximize your resources. Welcome to the wine to wine, the Italy business forum. Twenty twenty five Chicago edition where global wine professionals share insights, strategies, and inspiration from this year's conference. Let's dive into today's session and explore the ideas shaping the future of art. Hi, everyone, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Barbara Fitzgerald. I am a consultant for wine companies in the US and Italy, and I'm really happy to be here. And Juliana? Yes. Hi, everyone. I'm Juliana Colangelo. I co host a podcast on the Italian wine podcast with Barbara and, so Italian wine Ambassador and working for a Frederick Wildman at US, importer and a distributor. And it's great to see so many of you here so early. Thank you all for being here. We're excited to get started. Yes. We're gonna start just let each of the producers very quickly. Since again, we have a lot to say and a tight timeline, they're gonna intro themselves and their winery only, one by one, and then we're gonna dive right in. So Hi. Good morning, everyone. I'm Tashila Lungo, and I represent the winery from, Coli bolognese, so from Emilia Romania. And the winery name is Terreros de Balania. Today here, we are going to take. Good morning, everyone. My name is Stephanie Quadra. I'm cofounder of La sorta de Guadra in Valle Ditre Empulia. You're only meeting one of half of La sorte Guadra. My husband Robert La sorta is the la sorta part. I'm the quaddra. We'll be tasting our native field blend, silos, which is a blend of native grapes of the Valadilla, which are all white. So it's, just a, a curious anomaly from Pulia, an area that is known exclusively for white wines, not reds. Hi, everybody. I'm Mark Lazzaroni from Frioli, owner of Terri Lazzaroni. And today, we are going to taste our Frulano. Hello, everyone. My name is Federico Veronese. I'm the owner of podere Guardi Grande, winery from Sardinia in the northwest, close to Alguello. And today, we are gonna taste our Vermentino. Hello, everybody. My name is Marco Yupa. I'm here to represent my one area. It's Adiandagricola Yupa. I come from Milo on Mount Aetna. It's the only little village that can produce Aetna bianco superior, and we're gonna taste it today, Lavi, which is a ninety percent caricante ten percent. It's one of our labels of, Edro bianco supere order. Good morning, everyone. This is Maria Ferreras. I'm the owner of Maria Ferreras. I'm from Poria. And today, we will taste Demero Ditroyo Russell. Alright. So the format for today's tasting, we're really it's not quite a tasting. I know that's what it's called, but we're really gonna talk about route to market strategy, the challenges and opportunities that we're all facing in this industry, but especially the six people we have on stage, and what they're facing as they look to enter the market, or they have just started entering the US market. We've got a lot of headwinds against us. I'm not gonna list all of them. There's too many to say right now, but, number one, perhaps being tariffs, lower consumption, cannabis, you name it. But we also have a lot of opportunities. So we don't want this to feel doom and gloom. We wanna share some of the bright spots that we see in the market, and some of the ways in which together we can work through these challenging times. So this session's really about brainstorming, problem solving, sharing ideas, and coming together. To think about how we approach these these challenging times. Yeah. So as Juliana mentioned, not really a technical tasting. The wines are here for you to give you context to understand as buyers how these wines and these wineries can fit into maybe your portfolio or fit to your regional market. But with that, we're gonna kick it off today starting to just kind of get the same foundation under us. So we pulled some data from SIP source, which if somebody here doesn't know what SIP source is, this is kind of depletion level data directly from wholesalers in the US. So a really good kind of benchmarking point. It's very black and white. It doesn't tell all the stories, but it's a good place for us to start from. So overall, we see here in the US that consumption is down, but there are some pockets of growth, especially for sparkling wines. So we have a sparkling wine here on our panel today. That's great. The consumption is down overall about five percent in volume, for Italian wines. But actually, the overall consumption of wine is down by about eight percent in the US. So Italian wine actually has a little bit of a bright spot here. You're doing better than most. So that actually opens up some good avenues for more opportunity as Juliana mentioned. Yeah. And then, you know, on the bright side and the the green spots on this slide, we see sparkling wine growth. We also see that sixteen to eighteen ninety nine. It's been an incredibly resilient price point in the wine industry and continues to show some growth. So we're seeing that premium positioning continue to last. And on the flip side, and this is why the US is so complicated, every state is literally a different market, because on the flip side, we see that growth in the one point five liter in that value driven space also. So really kinda two sides. So the story. And then finally, just as a regional perspective, we're here in Chicago in the Midwest, and we're seeing pockets of growth regionally in the South and in the Midwest, and that's correlating directly to where population growth is happening in the US market where people are moving to. So And we wanna just set the stage with a few very, very top line trends on the Italian wine category before we dive into our Q and A. So with that, I think we'll get started with our first producer. So Cecilia, you're up first. We're all here today in some part, then thanks to the Italian trade agency. So I would love to hear from your perspective, Cecilia. What does an event like this here? Van Italy USA do for you as a young producer? Thank you for the question. We are not yet represented in the US. So it's a big challenge. You you were saying right now in this panorama of, consumption of the wines that is going down instead of growing. So it's not easy because many portfolio are already super packed. And many of them say there is no space for new wineries, but it's our view to try keep trying planting seeds and see whether in another day we will be able to enter I think that being here in Chicago and not being in a super overcrowded area is a good point. So it's a very important point. So everybody from the US can come here. And together as the thing that we are in the end of the year So we can keep on planting seeds for two thousand and twenty six and see whether probably next year we will be able to keep on adding in our wines in the portfolio. So it's a very good opportunity There are a lot of matching that we have been able to do through the hap. So we hope we'll be a very good fair. Yeah. Here you can see what we are tasting. Actually, the wine is which the name is very fun beca