The strength of Italian wine lies in the large number of its producers rather than in the big? numbers of just a few large multinational companies. It is these producers – most of whom are very small in size – who represent the force and vitality of the nation’s varied but extremely high-quality viticultural terroirs. The major changes that have taken place in international wine production and trading – for example, the acquisition of brands by large financial/commercial corporations and the setting-up of huge vineyards run according to "industrial" principles in Asia, Latin America and Australia – will not ultimately destroy Italy’s special viti-vinicultural heritage.
This is the – highly optimistic - opinion of Angelo Gaja, one of the main producers responsible for saving and re-launching Italian wine in the 1980s.
"The Italian wine system consists of 33,000 businessmen and women running wineries that vary in size from large to tiny".
Is this extremely high number of producers an important resource or is it a stone round? the nation’s neck??
"This fragmentation - Gaja underlines – is the result of a historical and socio-economic process that is part and parcel not only of Italy but of Europe as a whole: it’s part of our D.N.A., it makes us what we are. Fragmentation, though, has not prevented Italy from becoming the world’s leading wine-exporting nation, leaving France a very distant second: the result isn’t really that bad at all".
"It is amongst the 4 thousand or so small and tiny companies that export regularly that one finds a great many of the wineries which, thanks to the ratings their wines have received from international guides and wine-writers, have had a positive influence on the image and prestige of Italian wine, leading to beneficial effects for the sector as a whole".
So what does the future hold for small wineries?
"The Italian wine system is extremely well-integrated?. A capacity for working side by side links together companies of different sizes and with different production philosophies and marketing strategies. The smaller producers will help safeguard individual terroirs. They will welcome wine tourists. They will sell wines in bulk to the bottling firms, whilst maintaining the goal of higher quality. They will succeed in grasping consumers’ imaginations by explaining their wines and their history. They will learn English. They will think of the whole of Europe as their own country and as the market to conquer, and the number of them who have learned how to sell their wines outside of Europe will also continue to grow… The real great wealth of Italian wine lies in its entrepreneurs, whether large, medium-sized, small or tiny. Together with their wineries, they constitute the motor for building demand for Italian wines. The terroir? and indigenous varieties count for less: these are factors that the producer has the opportunity to underline to a greater or lesser degree. It is logical to imagine, however, that there will be a process of aggregation involving both large and small producers, but if – taking an educated guess – there are still 28-30,000 wine producers in fifteen years’ time , Italy will continue to be the country with the most sizeable treasure house of people who really know the business of wine. And that is my main reason for looking towards the future of Italian wine with great optimism".
