Italian wine swarmed into China

In recent years, with the reduce of tax, more and more overseas wines entered China market. In 2007, most of China's imports of bottled wine from Italy, France, Chile, Australia, Spain, Argentina, German and America. The growth rate of imports of Italian bottled wine was in the first place by exceeding France.

However, Italian wine entered China market later than some countries. And lots of Italian wines hadn't met with Chinese consumers. So, it's considered that there would be a potential market in China for Italian wine. A Zhejiang winery decided to cooperate with Italy GIV to exploit high-end market.

Five brands of wine from the northern Italian region of Valle d'Aosta applied to receive a Denomination of Controlled Origin

The region is authorised to give DOC since 2004. Currently there are more than 1.2 million bottles of Valle D'Aosta wine on the regional, national and international market with a DOC.

There are 38 wine bottling companies in the region. Wine production generates around 7.0 mln euro ($11 mln) per year and accounts for 12 pct of the local agriculture.

The vineyards in the region produced some 27,000 quintals of grapes in 2007. The wine production in 2007 was down by 15 pct compared to 2006, when Valle D'Aosta produced some 20,000 hectolitres.

Italian wine online

With Wine Country in our backyard, it's easy to get caught up in local news and forget about the wine industry in Italy.

Recently, however, Italian journalist and wine critic Franco Ziliani and American writer, blogger and translator Jeremy Parzen launched VinoWire.com, a new Web site that focuses solely on that region.

Italian wine lovers will find a live newswire with industry-related events and breaking stories, tasting notes and recommendations. Check out longer editorial pieces and commentary from visiting journalists, and links to other blogs devoted to the Italian wine culture.

Vintages: A young Italian, nicely balanced

Fifth-generation Italian winemaker Luca Currado was contrite. After the first hour of our conversation during his visit to the United States this month, a few mornings after a tasting that introduced his winery's impressive new releases, the passionate 38-year-old apologized to us in his charming Italian accent: "You wanted to talk with me about wine, and I know I talk too much about food. ..."

2007 A RECORD YEAR FOR ITALIAN WINE EXPORTS

2007 will be remembered as a record-breaking year for Italian wine on the U.S. market. A total 2.3 million hectoliters were exported for a total worth of 1.13 billion dollars, and a large jump ahead of the main competitors, France and Australia. In 2007, Italy exported double the quantity of its French rivals and 400,000 hectoliters more than Australia.

“The most interesting aspect” – declared Jacopo Biondi Santi, Chairman of the Italian Wine & Food Institute – “is that Italy closed out 2007 with an increase of 9% in quantity and value, while Australia registered a decrease in quantity of 3.5% and only a slight increase in value of 3.2%. An even more significant fact, if it is taken into consideration that Italy had more difficulties to confront than Australia, above all, because of the strength of the euro over the dollar, which has reduced the competitiveness of Italian producers”.