Italian wine find promising land
2013-07-23 15:49:47
On the sideline of the 4th “Traditional quality wine tasting” jointly held in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi on July 7-8 by Italian and French Trade Commissions, Italian Trade Commissioner in Vietnam Bruna Santarelli talked with VIR about the Vietnamese wine market’s potential.
Could you give an overview of Italian wine exports to Vietnam?
In recent years, Vietnam has become one of the fastest growing wine markets in Asia. With 63 million EUR of wine imports in 2012 or a 10 per cent growth on-year, the wine market here is highly attractive to Italian wine exporters.
Italian wine export to Vietnam in 2012 recorded a 20 per cent growth over 2011 and is on the increase. In a highly competitive market with hundreds of wine brand names from different countries, this is very encouraging growth.
Since 2008, Vietnam has received special interest from Italian businesses. Italian companies’ areas of interest in Vietnam include textile, footwear, farm products, fishery, among others, and of course wine export, one of Italy’s strengths.
What is the difference between Italian wines and those from other countries?
Italian wines are well known for quality and diversity in types, colors and flavors. These are the underlying factors that give Italian wines reputation and high worldly rankings, making Italy one of the most famous wine making countries in the ‘old world’ of wine producers (which includes France, Italy and Spain).
Wine quality depends on the territory of the grape growing sites (geography, soil, rain, wind, water and sunlight) and grape breeds. Different regions and different grape breeds give different wine tastes. In the US, Australia, Chile, Argentina and South Africa (also known as the new world of wine producers), mass growing of grapes allows more competitive price than Italian wine. This, however, makes it hard for these wines to achieve unique qualities.
What does this wine tasting effort expect to achieve?
Since early 2010, we, including France, Italy and Spain, have jointly organized the traditional quality wine tasting. I am delighted to see that following a few of these events, Italian wine producers have found distributors in Vietnam. I have seen these exporters’ wines present in Vietnam and enjoyed by Vietnamese consumers. This is the kind of success that we, the organizers, are looking for.
In addition to the annual quality wine tasting events, we also offer several wine tasting opportunities from different Italian regions. A typical example is the wine tasting for Tuscany, an area known for great Italian wines. About 25 wine producers from Tuscany will tentatively come to Vietnam in November this year to promote their products. In addition, we also provide training courses on Italian wines, and invite wine experts from Italy over to deliver their professional insights to wine enthusiasts in Vietnam.