Mexico City and Miami: Top Italian Wines Roadshow

Top Italian Wines Roadshow in Mexico City

The Top Italian Wines Roadshow, one of the great cycles of international events that Gambero Rosso has been dedicating to the great Italian wines for the past twenty years, has come back into force with the new year. Almost sixty producers with their flagship wines (well over 200!) met for the fifth big event in the Mexican capital, at the Four Seasons Hotel on Paseo de la Reforma, in the beating heart of the great city of 26 million inhabitants. It was literally a crowd, over 700 visitors from 3 to 8 pm, even if gates were open since 10:30 am with the first of the three popular master classes for the trade professionals held by Marco Sabellico and Lorenzo Ruggeri. The talk was all on wine in the country of cerveza and tequila. If consumption is still low (just over a litre per capita compared to 9 in the United States) consumption is increasing, and national wine production is growing, with new wineries being born every day, especially in the Baja California region.

Tourism and food and wine in Mexico

Tourism is growing and a dynamic economy is changing the local scene and opening new spaces to the world of international wine, which finds the only obstacle in high taxation that ends up favouring traditional products mentioned above. In recent years, also thanks to the success of Prosecco Doc, despite still no updated official data exists, Italy stands in third place in the ranking of exporting countries with over 42 million US dollars in annual turnover, slightly exceeding Chile and closer to France that's only slightly ahead, while Spain traditionally holds first place undisturbed. "Quality Italian dining, growing rapidly in the country, is developing an important role in promoting the consumption of Italian wine, which in its many facets goes very well, in addition to the Mediterranean cuisine, with the tasty and spicy cuisine of the many regions of Mexico," said Rolly Pavia - who has numerous restaurants in the country, including the famous Becco in the trendy Polanco district, and who is also an Italian wine importer and distributor. "Italian wine is the bet everyon'es focused on, it's intriguing in its diversity, it fascinates consumers, it has the right value for money," echoes Wesley Alejandro Rodriguez Young, General Manager of Viparmex import, "and it can only grow if producers continue to believe in this market". Que viva Mexico, then!

Top Italian Wines Roadshow in Miami

On February 24, the 2019/20 Roadshow landed in Miami, where in the afternoon from 3 to 7 pm over 600 visitors, including trade professionals, journalists, sommeliers and enthusiasts, took turns in the magnificent halls of what was once the headquarters of the National Florida Bank. Located in the historic DuPont building, one of the first skyscrapers in the city, a perfectly restored Art Deco masterpiece that Alfred DuPont, President of the bank, built at the end of the Great Depression (1939) to celebrate the city's economic rebirth. Today, like then, Miami, the capital of the Golden State, is experiencing a magical moment... We are in full economic and construction boom, and what until recently was "only" a famous tourist destination––known for being affordable––is today one of the financial, real estate and economic capitals of the United States, where a wealthy elite of financiers, show business and fashion celebrities live... New neighbourhoods are continuously being born and the city proceeds to swiftly restoring and redeveloping historic sites, of which the DuPont is one of the most beautiful examples.

Quality wines and spirits

The greatest architects in the world are employed in projects here, or have given beautiful buildings to Miami, now one of the most important art cities in the United States thanks to its museums, galleries and private collections. And Miami continues to attract tourists and residents from all over the USA as well as from nearby Central America and beyond... Add to this a dazzling and ever-growing gastronomic scene that's seeing Italy climb the charts with many new openings as recorded in our Top Italian Restaurants in the world Guide: that's why it's an inevitable destination for the Roadshow. Which in turn confirms the climb in consumption of quality wines and spirits, as the state at the top of the US ranking. The crowds present at the three Master classes we organized in the former vault of the National Bank, filled with attentive operators, gave us the measure of their success. Our swimsuits and sunglasses stowed away, it's now time to fly to Chicago!