José Peñín, Martin Moran (Wine Republic), Gerhard Eichelmann and Luigi Bortolotti

10.05.2005 | 

The prestigious writer, journalist and author of the "Guía Peñín de los Vinos de España" (Peñín Spanish Wine Guide), José Peñín, participated in FENAVIN in the round table "the future of wine guides. Importance during purchasing process" who was chaired by Antonio Casado, who is the director of the "Guía Peñín de los Vinos de España". Martin Moran MW, joint author of the annual guide Wine Republic, the German Gerahrd Eichelmann, author of the Guide with his name, and Luigi Bortolotti, of the Guia Duemilavini from Rome, participated also.

José Peñín confirmed the importance of guides as a useful tool to filter all incoming information.

Peñín does not classify wine eating; he does it in a neutral way, according to his explanations. He stated, " the more brands, the more necessary guides will be, working as a filter of all the information" something the other speakers agreed to.

José Peñín is not worried about the drop in wine consumption in Spain compared to other countries like France or Italy because he believes "we now spend more money than before on wine. We should not give that great importance to consumption history. Now more people drink wine. Now there are more and better quality wines". He concluded the quality topic by saying "nowadays, to make a bad wine one has to do it on purpose".

Luigi Bortolotti, from the Duemilavini Guide in Rome, showed his guide, similar to an encyclopedia, to which 30 000 people are affiliated and with a print run of 60 000 copies.

The Italian said that in Italy "there is a consumer-group who is curious and interested in quality whereas others use the guides to boast with friends"

For Bortolotti, a guide is "something very personal, a valuation based on personal tastes, an honest filter because amateurs and consumers cannot taste 15 000 brands per year".

The German Gerhard Eichelmann, author of the guide with his own name, said he does his wine tasting blindly, without any knowledge of brand or price, and he added, "although it has been said that guides have no future, I am selling more and more each year, therefore the future is promising".

Not so promising is the situation in Great Britain according to Martin Moran, joint author of the annual guide Wine Republic although he thinks critics are necessary because "we help improve the world" and he did not agree with Bortolotti "in The UK and Ireland, we do not like encyclopedias, we prefer smaller guides".

SPANISH WINE IS NOT SOLD THE RIGHT WAY

A few moments before the round table, Peñín talked to the media, and said about FENAVIN "a country must organize a trade show for its own wineries. In Spain, fairs must be organized to attract Spanish wineries and thus promote Spanish wine and not waste energies looking for internationalization when that can only be achieved with consolidation. Fairs have to be monographic and this is FENAVIN's case, therefore success is guaranteed".

Moreover, the writer and journalist thinks "Spanish wine is not sold the right way abroad. There is no coherent price policy. Some wineries are depending on external vineyards". Regarding the internal Spanish wine market, his views are that " it is not as nice as it looks. Spanish wineries are mean when it comes to promoting their wines".