The annual Italian wine trade show, Vinitaly, has just ended, and the threatened US tariffs against Italy have just been adjusted down to 10% (for now). What a hell of a week it has been. Now what? For those who are wondering what direction Italian wine should take in 2025, this could be a bit of a “shaking my head” moment. After all, Kyiv is 1,300 miles from Milan, less than the distance Houston is from New York. And with a protracted war that has taken trade off the table for Italy with Russia, and with an unstable reality driving the American economy (for the foreseeable future), where does Italy pivot to? Local consumption is down, as has alcohol consumption, worldwide. China is seeing their growth slow down, who is going to drink all that Italian wine? Is it time to pare down wine production in Italy? Have we reached that moment? Again, I am going to take the point of view of the winegrower and winery operator. It is likely that I have vintages in the cellar, mainly reds, waiting for their release date. And some of those release dates are predicated by laws governing such things. So, the wines cannot sit in the barrels indeterminately. Let’s talk about the white, sparkling and rosé wines first. They are coming up on release dates presently. And with tariffs “paused” for 90 days, I’d be making deals with my US suppliers to get as much wine out of the winery and onto the water ASAP. I’d probably have to give extended payment terms and maybe even discount the wines. Not a fire sale discount, but something to stimulate interest in getting these wines into the market post haste. That would be my strategy for those kinds of wines. Red wines are a different story. Depending on where my vines are grown and what kind of wines I make, I’d have to consider the longevity of the red wines I was making. Obviously, wines from Tuscany and Piedmont have been thought to lend themselves to greater ageing, especially in the higher appellations (Barolo, Barbaresco, Chianti Classico Riserva, Brunello di Montalcino, and so on). But what if I produce red wine from the Marche or Abruzzo, wines which are meant for earlier drinking and not always with so much bottle age on them? I’d probably be marketing those kinds of wines similar to the whites and rosés. Release them as early as the DOC laws allow (if they are a DOC) and for less significant appellations, move ‘em out as soon as I could. Then I would hunker down. Work on my DTC (direct to consumer) business, locally and if there remains any, the touristic visits to the wineries. At this point we don’t know how tourism will be affected, although there are plenty of people who have already planned visits, cruises and vacation times. Italy needs to re-examine their work life. Maybe taking the month off in August might not be in the cards this year. Maybe it won’t matter a bit, depending on one’s cash flow. In any case, this will be a year to sharpen the pencils and crank everything down in a most economically efficient way. This will not be a Rolex year, more likely a Seiko one. In other words, watch your spending. I’m fiscally traditional in manners like this. I know the large distribution houses have warehouses loaded with merchandise. 2024 was not a year in which sales set new records for increases. And contractual obligations have not been able to slow the flow down to a slow drip. Everything is flowing as if we didn’t just experience the last four or five months as we did. Which is to say, the element of uncertainty and chaos now must be factored in. As often is the case, the small growers and producers, along with the small importers, distributors, retailers and restaurants, will feel the pinch more. This is not a good time to be the little guy. But that’s the reality and one must face such things head on. Italy has had worse to deal with in its past. And that’s not to rationalize this topsy-turvy era we find ourselves in. But the aspect of survival is always present and in order to survive, one must evolve with the times. Out run it, out-think it and outlast it. And that is something the Italian mind heart and culture is very adept at.     © written and photo-styled by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W

The Quo Vadis Chronicles Let’s start with the small questions, shan’t we? All kidding aside, as we are in an epochal shift, what shall Italian winemakers do to tackle the existential threat to their livelihoods, their families, and their land? What would I do if I had 5 acres of Sangiovese in Tuscany? Well, there are a number of hacks, short term, so I’ll start with that. If I am invoicing a case of 12 bottles of wine to my importer at let’s say, €100, the first thing I would do is to study the possibility of doing a couple of things. One would be a past billing, let’s say present an invoice for goods long since received, and offer it as a second or third notice. Another “solution” would be to back off on the price and maybe offer the same case at €50 with the understanding that sometime in the future, if or when the tariff issues are resolved, to bill the additional €50 for the case, bringing the total, in time, to €100. It’s a bit of a shell game, but we’re dealing with a crook, a convicted felon, and someone who has bankrupted 6 companies and is going full bore into his 7th bankruptcy, this time the USA. A more surgical solution would be to take whatever percentage of tariff it is, let’s say 20%. And that would be for the farmer/winemaker to take a 10% cut and the importer to take the other 10%. Somewhere in there one could even try and persuade the wholesaler/distributor to share in some of that 20%, conceivably from their margins. I’m not hopeful for that, seeing as the big distribs have contract with their big suppliers, some of them American producers, and there will be pressure from those large suppliers to grow their domestic business in these turbulent times. What does the Chinese proverb say? - “A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.”   Forget about expecting the retailers or restaurateurs partaking in this exercise. They won’t be by-and-large. Another would be to sit and wait. But with inventory piling up and lighter red and white wine with a “use by” date, this doesn’t sound like a good idea. But for those who have a larger export base, this could be a partial strategy, especially for long-lasting red wines. But Italy already has reduced their business with the once-lucrative Russian market, and the Chinese business is flailing, because China is also experiencing tidal waves in their economy. Along with that, domestic consumption is down, and the younger folks in Italy either don’t have the money to drink more Italian wine, or they’ve moved away from wine to other euphoria-producing products. Or abstinence. All in all, it’s a bleak forecast, one which I am sure this week at Vinitaly is being discussed every which way. We experienced a bit of this in 2008, with Brunellopoli, the Brunello wine scandal from the 2003 vintage which presented itself at Vinitaly in 2008. We also struggled in 2002 with the blowback from 9/11 ad the ensuing conflict that came about in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, Italy and their American counterparts have had to deal with struggles and crisis before, this time seems a little different though. It seems self-inflicted from the American side. And after the 1,300 or so marches all across America yesterday, it seems that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans are angry about the direction the so-called leaders of the USA are taking Americans, and the world. Another view of thing (also requiring taking a deep breath and sucking it in) is that this might be a time to reset things in one’s life, one’s business dealings and one’s view of livelihood and all the expectations one might have for that. Easier said than done, I know that. But there are cycles, and this one is  definitely a down-cycle, subjugated by the whims of a narcissistic sociopath drunk on power and grievance. That said, this will not be an easy time. Just when everything seemed to be getting back to normal, with a few exceptions (Ukraine and Gaza) the world economy seemed to be recovering and going back to normalcy. And then, more disruption. That is what we are dealing with currently. Like I said, putting myself into the shoes of a winemaker in Italy, I think what I would do would be to crank it down real tight, watch my spending, curtail promotional travel, and reduce my production. Make better wine in smaller amounts, for the time being. And in 2025, wait out the storm. And if things don’t get better, I will have trained myself to be more judicious in such uncertain times. And if things get better, I will emerge with the rest of the world, after this giant hiccup subsides and we move on to better times.   © written and *photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy * photos were taken in Southern New Mexico of the patina on an 1954 IH truck  wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W