What can others learn from Italy? The country has been incredibly dominant in the Swedish market for several years. Italy sells twice as much as Spain and almost twice as much as France.
Are the wines better? Are they geniuses at marketing? Is there some worship of Italy going on among wine consumers? The last two arguments come closest to the truth. Because even if Italian wines are good, they are not twice as good as French and Spanish.
People seem to like Italy and there is nothing wrong with that. If the Italians do strange things, people say, “Oh, the Italians are so charming and unpredictable”. When the French do the same odd things, people say, “Oh, the French are so difficult and complicated”.
But it wasn’t France I wanted to compare Italy to, but Spain. France is doing well anyway, as the world’s largest producer of quality wines with enviable export statistics. Italy leads in volume (in Sweden) but France sells more expensive wines.
But if we compare Spain and Italy, why is Spain doing so much worse in the export market than Italy? Both are Mediterranean countries where tourists go for their summer holidays. Spain is a holiday paradise to an even greater extent than Italy. But the tourists are, of course, looking for sun, not for good wines.
Tourists eat, though, and eating is a crucial argument for why Italy is doing so well. The Spanish may well envy the Italians for their cuisine. Spanish gastronomy cannot compete with the Italian. Well, in quality, they can compete, but not in popularity. There is a pizzeria around the corner in every country you can imagine and everyone likes pasta. Italian food spreads Italian wines and Italian culture all over the world. What does Spain have? Spain has paella and tapas and the star chefs of San Sebastian.
The star chefs have raised the status of Spanish gastronomy but they are abstract to most people because you actually need to go to San Sebastian to experience them. I don’t think paella is big in any other country than Spain. A tapas trend spread over the world not so long ago and is still around, mainly in the form of small-portion plates that don’t feel particularly Spanish. Tapas has instead become a synonym for small portions and not for Spanish gastronomy.
What if the world only knew that Spain, not Italy, makes the world’s best cured ham by far. And is the world’s largest producer of olive oil. Has fish and shellfish second to none…
The Spanish themselves admit that they are bad at marketing. They are not getting their message out there. And today, they need to do that. Domestic wine consumption in Spain has decreased. The wine industry needs to export its wines, and it does; it’s just a shame that much of the Spanish export is bulk wine at rock-bottom prices.
The Spaniards need to boost their self-confidence.
The Italians, on the other hand, are geniuses at marketing. The Italians know marketing; they are born salespeople. They seem to know in advance what consumers want. Just look at prosecco, which went from selling 120 million bottles in 2009 to 700 million today (after first hijacking the prosecco grape name by pretending it was a district). Impressive. The Italians got Americans to drink pinot grigio in large sips and created a new appellation to satisfy the demand.
Another illustration: As journalists and wine writers, we sometimes (not very often actually) receive invitations to press trips. They are almost always to Italy, at least three out of four invitations.
But is Spanish wine doomed from the start?
Fewer wine books and less text are written about Spain. Spain gets less space in wine books that deal with the wine world in general. The wine writer Miquel Hudin, specialising in Spain, wrote in an article in 2023 that in the 8th edition of the World Atlas of Wine (the wine bible for many wine enthusiasts by Johnson & Robinson), there are only 18 pages dedicated to Spain (the same as the previous edition) and 25 for Germany (he’s right, I’ve verified). Italy has 33. Hudin brings up other wine books as examples of Spain not getting its fair share. Google Trends shows the same picture; “Italian wine” is twice as searched for as “Spanish wine”. (See illustration at the end.)
Could it be, as Hudin suggests, that already when people are studying wine, Spain is treated unfairly? Just look at the first sentence about Spain in the latest edition of the World Atlas of Wine: “With more vines than anybody else, but few wines of interest…” Who wants to admit to having written that?!
How wrong these few words seem.
Viva España!
Launching the wine tour season!
Next week the autumn travel season begins. Our very first destination this year will be the Loire Valley, a region that has recently regained in popularity. Which is not surprising. There are fantastic wines here, often at ridiculously low prices. There are wonderful restaurants in quaint little villages. All strewn along the long, but shallow river. This tour is followed by a whole series of autumn wine tours.
Another tour that is really special is our South America wine tour that takes you to Chile and Argentina in January. It is perhaps our most exotic trip juxtaposing these two Latin American countries and also an absolutely fantastic journey over the Andes. If you want to come along, you need to act NOW. Book before 15 September.
We have two other very special tours this winter. First, The Great South Africa Tour, which takes you to almost every wine region in South Africa. A unique insight into South Africa’s wines that no other tour can give you. Book before: 15 October.
The third winter tour is to New Zealand. I should probably also call it “The Great” New Zealand tour. From north to south over 16 days, you get a view of this new and modern but far-away wine country that few others have. Be one of the first to realize that New Zealand has so much more to offer than “just” sauvignon blanc. Not least nature and culture. A so charming wine country. Book before 15 November.
More info on our wine tours here. “World’s Top Wine Tours“. Tours with the people who know wine and who have an unrivalled experience of wine and tours.
Travel in wine regions with someone you trust.
Enjoy the Brief!
Britt & Per
Wine editors to the national encyclopedia, Forbes.com contributors, award-winning wine book authors, wine tour advisors to the UN and national wine organisations, wine judges … and, above all, passionate wine travellers.
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What’s on at BKWine Tours
BKWine is also one of the world’s leading wine tour operators. Here’s what we currently have on our scheduled wine tour program:
- Champagne, 25-29 September
- Bordeaux and Champagne, 25 Sept – 3 Oct
- Bordeaux, 29 Sep – 3 Oct
- Chile-Argentina, 13-26 January 2025
- South Africa, 14-24 February 2025
- New Zealand, 11-26 March 2025
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- Burgundy and the Rhone Valley, 17-25 September 2025 (program coming soon)
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We also make custom designed wine tours.
We’re different than most other wine tour operators. We are people who know wine inside out, who travel constantly in wine regions, who write award winning books about wine. Who do this out of passion. Our tours are different from others. More in wine tours: BKWineTours.com.
The chart below (and the lead picture) is from Google Trends. It shows how much searches were made for “Italian wine” and for “Spanish wine” over a period of five. years. There were more than double the amount of searches for Italian wine as for Spanish wine.
