So, look at the 3 points below :
- Certainly, the current rate of growth that Italian sparkling wine is enjoying not only in the UK but globally will be hard to sustain for much longer, so changes are surely afoot.
- Prosecco sales in the UK were up 75% year-on-year and overtook Champagne for the first time as Brits splashed out an estimated £1 billion on the stuff in the on- and off-trade.
- ” A lot of growers don’t understand how low the retail price of Prosecco is in the UK – if they knew they would be shocked,” believes Nick Bielak, director of London-based Italian specialist agent Vinexus.
I actually love how this problem has been pulled out by a foreigner magazine as The DrinkBusiness. Where are the issues ? well, it’s quite easy :
- the scammers
- the war’s price
- the customer’s perception
- the control of your own product
I still remember few years ago, four actually, when i tried to come up with a project ( you can still check it out in my BIO ) that would have helped to solve basically all these issues. I needed juts collaboration from the wineries, from the institutions and of course, investing money. I found just bunch of people trying to explain that there were either no money, nor time or just ” interesting but we do not need these things ” .
I traveled, saw what was going on, and even if i was working with hundreds of other brands, i have always kept my eyes open to my home land and its wine. Most of the prosecco sold around the world is just rubbish. Private labels with maybe 45% of glera are sold passing it off as prosecco ( sometime is written FRIZZANTE in the label and in the wine list Prosecco instead , and some producers are well known as well , of course check the back label and you will see ). I cannot see a good DOCG here in NY, most of the times there are not a single good prosecco around . No one knows Valdobbidene – Conegliano prosecco superiore DOCG ( they just know PROSECCO which means CHEAP CHAMPAGNE for most of the consumers ) , and well, Valdobbiadene-Conegliano is too complicated to pronounce by foreigners, it was a big marketing mistake !! The solution of this problem ? just keep as a name TREVISO DOCG – DOC – IGT and as sub-area Valdobbaidene OR Conegliano for DOCG , the CRU could have been the RIVE, ! Not a lot of people know about REIMS or EPERNEY , but they know CHAMPAGNE area ! I still remember, few years ago when i was working in the vinitaly wine fair, following up a buyer of prosecco from Chicago. We were talking about wines and speaking about the various differences of our style and products, when he looked up at a banner we had on the booth saying ” why the hell did you name your wine Valdodnfbvfbvyiqv – dene ? no one understand that because we cannot even spell it and i keep selling it as PROSECCO anyway ! No-one remember it . ”
Prosecco is easy, it is a gold mine , no one cares to sell it properly and to teach the consumers and even if some producers are doing anything they can to spread the message trying to lift up its image from a low-class cheap product to high-end top quality one , it doesn’t matter ! The world is a GLOBAL institution itself and the forces of the few cannot change how the way it is : new world of wine is taking over slowly the old world down. More powerful marketing campaigns, state-of-art hospitality facilities and the quality that is growing up too make a huge difference.
Unusually for Prosecco, the family-run Andreola owns 90% of its vines and the majority of its production is DOCG Prosecco. “It’s not a good situation,” he says. “In the same way that alcopops have damaged the image of some spirits, Prosecco is in danger of being associated with the cheap end of the market rather than representing an area of origin.”
We say so in Italy : “as long as the boat goes let it go ” , i think we should always keep it going even when the wind will slow down, keep in mind that.
ARTICLE HERE : http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2015/03/is-the-prosecco-bubble-about-to-burst/
