A good bottle of wine? I buy it online. It goes like this now, until you know. Tastings are exercises of the past with hundreds of sommeliers eager to return to tables and gatherings. Wine suffers all over the world and the Italian one, which has fought and won commercial and quality battles with fierce competitors, risks collapse. In order to maintain the market, small wineries had to quickly approach e-commerce. A modern system, of course, but which compresses rituals, journeys, sips in the cellars themselves, in the wine bars, in the wine bars. It is the oenologists who test the bottles before marketing that make us make good online purchases.
For years now, small Italian producers have been among the most attentive in the world to the quality of reds and whites. A fundamental leg of the eco-sustainable regeneration of the historic production areas. Without the Internet, however, they would not have survived the coronavirus crisis. All together they invoice 11 billion a year and had bid requests of 300% in April. According to the Wineowine.2 thousand companies, mostly certified for vines, crops, traditions, are discounting the closure of restaurants and hotels. Not even talking about events and meetings where millions of bottles are consumed.
The direct demand for wine has plummeted due to the harsh principles of the market, the big ones crush the little ones. And the small wineries, in fact, which are not part of the circuits of the large supermarkets, have had to invest in e-commerce. In four months they saw a 700% increase in the number of bottles sold, compared to the same period last year. Wineowine welcomes the results. The search for small producers continues without neglecting assessments of quality standards. “Since the beginning of 2020 – he says Luca Cotichini, manager of Winewine – we have given space in our catalog to over 50 small producers from all over Italy. We try to passionately tell the territory of the Belpaese and its extraordinary wine artisans to a loyal public”. Purchases that have solid roots in the territories are proposed. The sommeliers evaluate its properties to protect purchases. Marketing often combines wine with other regional products. In any case, it is a difficult year for the Italian market. Generalized declines in turnover of between 30 and 70% are estimated. Certainly higher for medium-small wineries, according to Winenews magazine. On e-commerce he writes that Italy is starting from very low numbers, which should compensate for the drop in catering consumption. Well, while waiting for phase 2 to be fully operational, something is moving.
