Italian wines and Asian markets: opportunities and threats under new policy scenarios and competitive dynamics

The world wine market is facing a particularly difficult situation. Both the EU and New World(NW) Countries are trying to manage this critical moment by filling reciprocal gaps in order toincrease their competitiveness at a global level and to strengthen their position in key strategicmarkets.On the EU side, one of the fundamental aspects of this changing framework is the evolution ofthe Common Market Organisation (CMO) for the wine sector. The first pivotal change is the factthat a parcel of land cannot host more than one designation of origin (either Geographical Indication– GI – Denominazione di Origine Controllata – DOC – or Denominazione di Origine Controllata eGarantita – DOCG), thus completely changing the approach to vintage choices, which characterisedthe Italian production in the last 50 years. A second important variation is the introduction of thepossibility to show grape varieties and the vintage year on table wines (a strategy often used by NWproducers). Conversely, on the NW side, the changes are mainly relative to the increase in the useof European grape varieties and the emphasis on the region-grape combination as an element ofexcellence.