The 14th edition of OperaWine kicked off Vinitaly, Italy’s signature wine fair in Verona, on April 5 against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear of a trans-Atlantic trade war sparked by President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs on European products. Yet for all the upheaval and changing headlines, the 131 top wine producers, all selected by Wine Spectator in cooperation with Vinitaly and trade group Veronafiere to pour their wines for select guests, showed a surprising degree of cool optimism that wine quality will win out over global events.
“When there is confusion, you need a place to share vision and ideas, and OperaWine is a starting point,” said Alberto Tasca of Sicily’s Tasca d’Almerita. “We need to be calm and confident. Good quality is a solution for everything.”
For OperaWine’s 1,800 attendees, the annual event was the chance to taste some of Italy’s most renowned wines and also meet many of the winemakers behind them. But for many producers the main topic of conversation was the shock of tariffs coming from Europe’s biggest trade partner and the danger of a global recession. The event was held while the specter of 20 percent tariffs on all European Union wines loomed. A few days later, the high tariffs were paused for 90 days, but 10 percent tariffs remain in place.
Albiera Antinori, president of Marchesi Antinori, said tariffs were just one of a list of challenges wine currently faces, joining anti-alcohol movements, climate change, shifts in consumption and the war in Ukraine. Still, she said, “I don’t think any of the wineries here today will have any serious problems in all the confusion. They are known, they represent quality and they the represent terroirs.
“One way or another we have to find a solution,” she said of the tariffs. “It’s not nice to have to deal with, but we have to find a way around it.” The current trade climate pales in comparison to the uncertainty created around the COVID pandemic that hit the world about five years ago, Antinori and other producers said.
Some smaller winemakers said they were worried about the potential squeeze on their already slim margins. The dilemma for many is if they can absorb some of the costs of tariffs, and whether their American importers, distributors, restaurants and retailer clients can too. Most said they were buoyed by faith that American wine lovers will continue to buy Italian. “The American market likes good wine and it likes Italian wine. We are sure there will be a solution,” said Giacomo Bartolommei of Caprili, a first-time OperaWine participant from Tuscany’s Montalcino.
Federico Dal Bianco of Prosecco producer Masottina echoed that sentiment. “Will Americans want to continue to drink Prosecco while spending a little more?” he asked. “In my opinion, yes.”
While a few more dollars in a restaurant or retailer might not sway consumers from selecting their favorite top Italian wines, many wine leaders at OperaWine expressed concerns that went beyond tariffs. A recession in either the U.S. or worldwide could be far worse for wine because consumers will pull back on spending. “A trade war will hurt the economy and then nobody wins,” said Giovanni Manetti of Tenuta di Fontodi and president of the Chianti Classico consortium. “It’s lose-lose.”
One of the most sensitive wines may be Prosecco, the extremely popular bubbly that counts the U.S., along with the U.K., as its top export market. Matteo Lunelli, president of his family’s northern Italian sparkling wine powerhouse, Ferrari, and vice president of Prosecco’s Bisol, conceded, “It would be difficult to raise the price of wines by the glass by 20 percent. But we will not comprise anything on quality. Duties will come and go, but something we will never compromise is quality.”
One of the most upbeat voices at OperaWine was Diego Bosoni of Liguria’s Cantine Lunae Bosoni, who sees the current threat of a trade war as an opportunity for the wine world to reconsider how it communicates with younger consumers in general and develop new markets. “The wine world needs a shakeup,” he said. “When things go too well, it becomes too easy. This is a new challenge.”
In the coming days and weeks, EU officials will try to use the carrot and stick of diplomacy and retaliatory tariffs to negotiate with the White House. On April 16, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, considered to have a good relationship with the U.S. President, is set to talk tariffs and trade with Trump on a visit to Washington D.C.
In a moment that summed up the mood, Italian agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida spent more than a hour tasting wines and talking to OperaWine producers. He then walked across the street to open his ministry’s multi-media Vinitaly exhibit on Italy’s wine history, knowhow and terroirs.
Surrounded by a fleet of Italian-made tractors outside the exhibit, Lollobrigida touted Italy’s growth into the world’s largest wine exporter and Americans’ appetite for Italian food, wine and lifestyle. “In Italy we have overcome many difficulties for wine in thousands of years of history,” he said. “We have overcome wars, revolutions, terrorism, pestilence and pandemics. And yet vino has always continued to grow. I am very optimistic the difficulties now will not slow that down.”
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