Seductive and surprising is the new women’s wine world: wines in a bag, associations of young thirsty girls, offers of personal shoppers and lots more

Vernissage design, wine in a bag

Read for you by Donatella Cinelli Colombini

In the USA 64% of wine consumers are women and 80% of the wine sold in a supermarket is bought by ladies. So why do wine producers continue thinking of their products as if they were for men? As women’s average income is rising, and traditionally they have earned less than men, but e now their pay is rising more rapidly than men’s and soon they will equal salaries and this will increase women’s spending ability and contractual power in the home and at work.
So here we have a new type of female protagonism in wine which is rising in a surprising way.
So here for you are the new trends in a very interesting OICCE article. The first case is the most intriguing. “Vernissage” the wine in elegant and revolutionary designer containers. Practically a pun explained with the term “bag in bag” so little bags that contain Cabernet, Chardonnay, and rosé from France and are proposed by the Swedish importer Oenoforos.
Again very interesting packaging from Lambrini who bottle in Liverpool fermented beverages with low alcohol content with the catchphrase “Lambrini girls just wanna have fun”. A promotion regarding 500.000 1,5 lt bottles has been launched with a mascara included. Just before that another promotion regarded access to a competition where the prize was “what money cannot buy” a voucher worth 2.000 pounds to be spent with an exceptional personal shopper Patrick Swan the celebrity stylist.

28years old, born in Montalcino, studies regarding business economics and wine marketing, Violante Gardini – Cinellicolombini Jr-  has wine tourism in her  DNA

Violante Gardini in the family winecellar

Violante Gardini takes into her own hands the presidency of the Movimento Turismo del Vino for Tuscany, and her first objective is  Calici di stelle. This is a wine festival that takes place on August 10^th in the Città del vino and in the wineries members of MTV. Together with Violante on the board of directors of MTV Toscana are Federico Taddei, Alessandro Bindocci, Augusto Monaci, Baldino Terenzi, Emanuela Tamburini, Serena Contini Buonacossi, Alioscia Lombardini.

The Movimento Turismo del Vino was born in 1993 and has about 1000 member wineries all over Italy, the president is Daniela Mastroberardino. The principal event of this association is Cantine aperte- Wine day, a day dedicated to wine tourism which every year takes place in May. In Tuscany there are 60 member wineries, where the welcoming is particularly well-cared-for. This regions has always had leading roles at national and often international levels, in fact it is first in the   Trip Advisor wine region list for 2012.

The first project to be put into act by the newly elected Presidente Toscana di MTV Violante Gardini regards the enhancement of web communication chic is already now the first channel for divulging wine tourism inItaly.

Violante inherits from her mother Donatella Cinelli Colombini – creator of Cantine aperte – a real passion for wine tourism. She has dedicated her two degree thesis in Business Economy and in the Master OIV –International Organization of Vine and Wine- as well as a period of work experience for the National secretariat of the Movimento turismo del vino, under Chiara Lungarotti’s watchful eye.

Other than wine tourism there is another common thread which is personal and familiar and that is associationism. Since she was very young she has had important roles which have taught her spirit of service and leadership: in 2008 – 2009 she was president of the Leo Toscana (younger Lions members) at present she is on the national board of directors of Agivi Giovani Imprenditori Vitivinicoli Italiani.

So wine is consequently the central subject of her professional life and in fact Violante is Sales Manager for her mother’s wineries, Casato Prime Donne in Montalcino and Fattoria del Colle in southern Chianti.

Let me introduce myself my name is Carlo Gardini husband to (or maybe martyr to) Donatella Cinelli Colombini and I wish to tell you about the Traminer Vineyard at Fattoria del Colle

Carlo con l'uva di Traminer

One might think that it is an experiment or the desire for diversity at any cost, but in reality it is something more prosaic and less exceptional.
Everything began about 35 years ago when following a trend regarding wines with lower alcohol content a group of important Tuscan vineyards decided to use white grapes in the Chianti area to produce “Galestro”, a simple and easy to drink white wine destined to be matched with fish recipes and for the summer heat.
The years go by and my father in law together with his wine maker, who came from Veneto, this type of wine does not convince and they do not like it so how to use the Trebbiano grapes still present at Fattoria del Colle in Trequanda? After a careful consideration, and some discussions the winemaker proposes to plant Traminer to create a white wine that added to the Trebbiamo already existent the perfume of the new Traminer just arrived.

So the first bottles of “Sanchimento” arrived, the new white wine that gets its name from the Traminer Vineyard planted just behind the crape on the farm dedicated to San Clemente (pronounced in local slang as San Chimento).
With the passing of the years the old Trebbiano vines produced less and less, and slowly diminish until there are no more and the Sanchimento becomes a white Tuscan wine made only with Traminer grapes.

In Italy biological wine enters 2 % of homes but in the US things are better and 34% of wine lovers prefer environmentally friendly bottles

biological or organic wine

In other words the larger market for biological bottles is abroad and most of all in distant nations, while here in Italy it is still a niche product. Not a very favourable circumstance for the small estates which actually constitute the larger slice of Italian biological farms. The photograph of this sector arrives from both WineMonitor and WineNews at the same time, and there are some real surprises. Italy has 57.000 hectares of vineyard for biological cultivations, a surface which has more than doubled with respect to 8 years ago and equivalent to 6,5% of the total national vineyard. With the new European rulings, which we have waited 21 years to get, it is now possible to obtain the biological certification of the wineries and consequently to produce wine as well as grapes that are bio. Finally it will be an end, hopefully, of the imaginative names that are “bio sounding” such as natural pure wine, and other wines without rules regarding production.

The use of printed paper, guide books included, will decrease because of the web. Organic wines will sell well, as will those that are excellent and those that are fun.

Violante, Donatella's daughter with a chef in Alberta, Canada

Never have there been so many changes in such a short time. Let’s expect a massive increase in sales in wines that respect the environment. The forecast by the Wine Institute divulged by WineNews reveals that the USA wine lovers prefer wines that are environmentally friendly in 34% of cases, a percentage which can also increase if the interviewee is a restaurateur or wine shop owner. Gabriele Micozzi, Marketing professor at Luiss and at the Università Politecnica in the Marche (still form WineNews), confirms these trends on markets where there will be a major expansion in the future: China, Russia and Brazil. Evidently there are some distinctions to be made, in China red wines that are very “sweet”, in Russia the more alcoholic and structured whites, while in Brazil the more refined “fun beverages”. However everywhere the biological –organic segment will sell very well.