The tenth edition of Vinitaly Russia opens with a flurry of bottles and ends with a smile as producers, importers, journalists and key players of the Russian world of wine share with Vinitaly International their optimistic view of the future of Italian wine in a difficult but promising market where all that is Italian has become fashionable and stylish.
“Italian wine is a great success story in the Russian market, it sells more and more and we love to spend money on it: we love Italy, we love to go to Italy and we love to spend money on Italian wine inside Russia. Italy is fashionable and very successful” said Igor Serdyuk, nominated in 2007 the "Most Influential Wine Writer" by Meininger's Who's Who in Russia and recently appointed Chief analyst for Simple Wine News.
The love for Italian wine, culture and food is also shared by top brasses of some of the most important Importing Companies in Russia such as Irina Fomina, Chairman of the Board at MBG and Dmitry Pinsky, Manging Director of DPTrade who also stressed that the strength of Italian wines in Russia owes a lot to the great success of Italian cuisine: “You can count hundreds and hundreds of Italian restaurants in Moscow and Trattorias and that's what is supporting the sales of Italian wines. Another advantage to Italian wines is a much better price to quality ratio than that of French wines. If we consider our portfolio, our sales are 40% Italian wines in value and only 22 to 25 % French. I personally consider the destiny of Italian wines in Russia as absolutely positive.”
Russia is undoubtedly a market that we need to target since it quite obviously loves the Italian style.” Says Daniela Mastrobernardino from Terradora Winery and President of Movimento del Turismo del Vino. “Vinitaly International is the best way to promote Italian wine especially since it helps consumers acquire a better knowledge of the excellence and richness of Italian produce”.
Slow Food’s wine guide, Slow Wine, is at its third stop, after New York and Hong Kong, of a year long collaboration with Vinitaly International: “I am positively impressed by this event, not only because it has been a success but also because of the high level of interest shown by operators and consumers” explains Fabio Giavedoni. “ We know we have a great appeal here in Russia but I did not expect attendees to be so interested not only in the wine itself but also in the land and the way in which wine is produced. This is exactly the message we try to convey to all our readers though our guide.”
“This year’s edition of Vinitaly Russia was mostly focused on the quality of attendees rather than the quantity, thanks to a strict selection carried out through a double level registration system” explained Stevie Kim, Managing Director of Vinitaly International. “Talking with importers, journalists and producers during the event the general sentiment was that Italian wine has become the new trend of the moment in Russia. If we take advantage of this tendency and work as a team we can strengthen our presence in the Russian Market. In the mean time, we have been trying to help people live our events in real time through a continuous stream of videos, photos and information, which were published throughout the event on all our social media channels. We don’t presume to be perfect but we are really keen on engaging as much as possible all those producers, importers and Italian wine drinkers who follow us with such enthusiasm.
Jeffrey Dale Starr is a wine enthusiast, oil painter, and owner of mobile software company Purple Falcon.
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