When it comes to the Coronavirus, the region of Lombardy and its well-known city of Milan was the first Covid-19 epicenter after China and it paid a high price for it as it was one of the first areas in Europe to become overwhelmed by the virus because of the lack of knowledge and treatments at the early stage of this pandemic. Due to Milan receiving large amounts of foreign investment over the past couple of decades becoming Italy’s business and financial capital, there is a lot of work travel that has connected Milan to the rest of the world and hence why they were hit so hard very early on in the Covid crisis. The same was true for New York City which followed in the footsteps of Milan by being ambushed by this extremely transmissible and relentless virus. But as Milan has recovered and found ways to control the spread of the coronavirus, there has been a focus on how to restart the economy and since they have become the leader in technology for Italy, an important event, Milan Wine Week (Milano Wine Week), will use the digital prowess of the area to present the first international wine event since the global Covid-19 shutdown.
Milan Wine Week
Federico Gordini, Founder of Milan Wine Week, decided back in March that although the region of Lombardy as a whole was looking like one of the worst places to be hit by Covid, he had a responsibility to find a way to restart the economy after it had come to a complete halt. Federico has already a long list of accomplishments while still being a few years shy of 40 years old that includes being the president of the Milan Expo Committee in 2006, the founder of the largest Milan food festival Milan Food Week in 2009, establishing one of the most important wine events in Milan called Open Bottles and starting Milan Wine Week in 2018. Along the way, he picked up awards for his entrepreneurship; his mission is to make Milan the Italian capital for food and wine like it is the capital for fashion, design and in recent times for finance and business.
Federico was forced to cancel Milan Food Week that took place in May but he was determined to continue the planning for Milan Wine Week, taking place October 3rd to 11th, as he sees small Italian producers that were dependent on 90% of their sales going through restaurants fighting for the lives of their businesses as well as all the restaurants trying to survive, he sees that someone needs to give the signal that the wine and food industry will find a way to ride out this crisis. Milan Wine Week is geared towards the final consumer as well as wine industry and media. This year they will be working with top Italian chefs on a series of food and wine pairing demonstrations for consumers that will focus on the wine providing the inspiration for the dish and it will take place at a test kitchen near the beautiful Piazza del Duomo.
As Milan Wine Week wants to focus more on experiential events that connect with wine consumers, rather than a wine fair with just a bunch of booths, they will also setup small wine worlds within the most popular neighborhoods in Milan; one neighborhood will focus on Franciacorta wines while another will focus on Prosecco wines, for example, and each neighborhood will have wine bars and restaurants focusing on that wine area. The neighborhoods will become a mini magical wonderland for a particular consorzio (association) of wines while also allowing these same wine consumers to jump on a bus at the end of Milan Wine Week to go to the Franciacorta wine region (one hour away) or a high-speed train to Rome (one hour and 30 minutes away) or go all the way East to Venice with the wine area rich region of Veneto via high-speed train (two hours and 30 minutes). Wine lovers interested in keeping up to date with Milan Wine Week can subscribe here.
For the wine trade and media, there will be a series of master classes and wine tastings as well as seminars that will not only focus on advice, guidance and networking opportunities but it will speak about exploring opportunities in a post-Covid world while all events will honor rules and guidelines for avoiding the spread of the virus. Since Milan Wine Week is supposed to be an international event for the world, they have upped their digital game by preparing to have events taking place in ten different cities around the world (New York, San Francisco, Miami, Toronto, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, Munich and London) that will be linked live to events taking place in Milan such as a winemaker leading a tasting and connecting live to other international cities via the internet. Those who would like to preregister for these events in one of these ten cities should register here.
Through this great tragedy with the coronavirus that takes livelihoods as well as lives, Federico says that this has become the “big storm that is forcing a more open mind in regards to technology” among Italian wine producers. Before, technology was something that many wine producers rooted in tradition thought was difficult for to trust but now they are realizing that they can sell wines online via websites and increase sales by conducting virtual wine tastings on the internet. A whole new world of how wine producers can bring their wines to the world has opened up. Yet Federico stresses that “technology can’t substitute everything” because it will be important for the 2021 edition of Milan Wine Week to have people come from all over the world like in their 2019 edition that had over 300,000 attendees that involved over 300 events. Its intention is not to be just an event for Italian wines but they want wine producers from all over the world to showcase their wines; the Covid crisis has made them invest more in digital communication as it has become a vital tool, and will continue to be one, in the wine world.
Wine Center for Italy
A heavy responsibility weighs on Federico because he is the president of the Young Entrepreneurs Group of Confcommercio Lombardia and president of the Zona Tortona Savona Association which are groups that are invested in encouraging entrepreneurship among younger people as well as building a strong infrastructure in regards to transportation, technology and local government assistance in the Lombardy area that has had a heavy focus on the booming economy in Milan. Federico noted that Milan has “transformed over the past ten years” especially since there is a greater influx of investment due to the Olympic Winter Games “Milano Cortina” coming in 2026 and part of that investment has allowed Federico to take advantage of Milan being in the middle of Europe, living up to the translation of its name “the middle of the land” as it is not a place known for only one type of cuisine or wines, such as other Italian cities, but it has many different Italian cuisines and wines represented in the city with an international diverse population and diverse tourism. And so Federico makes a great case that since it is known as the center for fashion and design excellence, as Milan is independent in its thinking and open to the outside world, it only makes sense to him that the next step is to make it the center for wine and food excellence.
“The idea of what the wine market will be in the next 20 years will be built right now; every crisis is an opportunity to rebuild”, Federico states passionately. But when does the global wine world completely restart? He noted, “The world of wine needs a signal, the signal from Milan; the light to show the way from Milan.” And this may be the moment in time that Federico with his Milan Wine Week extravaganza finds a way to pull the international wine world together, pull them together on a more modern path that gives a stronger connection with the final consumer and a better work/life balance – using technology the way it should be used – to improve one’s life instead of complicate it.
