Today, in Ciudad Real, Nemesio de Lara, the National Wine Fair's President, together with its Coordinator, Ángel Amador and its Managing Director, Manuel Julià, has presented the fifth edition of Fenavin, which will be held from the 5th to the 7th of May

02.03.2009 | 

The crisis being suffered by the Spanish economy and, more specifically, by the wine sector, has not affected FENAVIN, the 5th edition of the National Wine Fair, which will open its doors from the 5th to the 7th of May. This is the main conclusion that can be reached when checking figures such as the number of wineries that will be present at the Fair: around 1,200, both attending or being represented, and the increase in the amount of exhibiting square meters, which has grown from the 22,133 of 2007's edition to the 29,525 of the present one, and to which the Ganímedes, a new pavilion with number 8 has been added.

In this 2008 edition, whose details have been made public by FENAVIN's President moreover the President of the Diputación provincial de Ciudad Real (the Provincial Government of Ciudad Real), Nemesio de Lara, together with its institutional coordinator, Ángel Amador, and its Managing Director, Manuel Juliá, wines from all Spanish Designation of Origin will be present at this Spanish wines fair of reference, and in which 9o% of the wineries from Ciudad Real will display their brands occupying 30% of the total exhibition grounds.

Translated into figures, this means that from the 785 wineries being present at FENAVIN 2009, 199 are from the Ciudad Real province, which implies that very few will miss this important gathering of the sector. Besides, up to date, a total of 76 wineries from the Spanish territory are on the waiting list for lack of space, and despite the fact that its size has been increased 33,39% in regards to the prior edition.

Therefore, the Fair has grown in number in relation to the prior edition, which was attended by 978 (22.69%) wineries, a great answer from this sector that proves the good criteria in the organization planning of the Fair, focused mainly on business, a vision that has managed to convince Spanish wineries and buyers from all over the world of the efficacy of the 'FENAVIN method'.

De Lara, who has stated his satisfaction on "this spectacular growth", has pointed out that FENAVIN's budget could be around 2.3 million euros and has taken the opportunity to thank sponsors such as the Junta de Comunidades (The Council of Communities), and financial institutions like Caja Castilla la Mancha, Caja Rural de Ciudad Real, UNICAJA and Caja Sol for their support.

Besides, the fair's President has reflected on the alarming drop of wine consumption being experienced in Spain and in the European Union, quite the opposite of what is happening in countries like Mexico and the USA. "This leads to ponder two very concrete issues: more intensive campaigns are needed on the healthy consumption of wine; and that we have to keep a strong commitment on exports ".

Precisely in this sense, the business expectations generated among national wineries and foreign importers by FENAVIN are great: this year there will be buyers from 44 countries all over the world, as well as the national ones.

About 2,500 buyers from 44 countries

In this sense, the collaboration between the Chamber of Commerce and the IPEX and the Fair's organization body will allow for the presence of a greater number of international buyers than in the prior edition. The coordination between these institutions is necessary in order to develop the various contacts between the agents and firms specialized in the sector and the Spanish Commercial offices abroad, seeking this way potential customers for the exhibitors present at FENAVIN around four central themes:

1. Traditional markets for Spanish exports, such as Germany or the UK.
2. New potential markets, such as Romania.
3. Great unexplored and emerging markets, such as China or India
4. Exotic markets, as for instance Lebanon or the Arab Emirates.

For this reason, more than 500 distributors and importers from 44 countries will be operating at the Ciudad Real Fair Pavilion in May: Germany, Austria, Japan, Mexico, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, UK, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, Singapore, Switzerland, the USA, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Russia, El Salvador, United Arab Emirates, Angola, Colombia, South Korea, Israel Puerto Rico, Vietnam, Malaysia, Ukraine, Ecuador, Kazakhstan y Romania.

Those international buyers who attend on their own account have to be added to these figures, which, according to the pace in the application for accreditations for this edition, are estimated in 1,500.

Furthermore, this year, the organization of the Fair has thrown itself into the National Buyers Recruitment Program that is developing a protocol for special actions aimed at gathering a total amount of 15,000 professionals. This way, FENAVIN contacts personally with the selected buyers according to their greater capacity of generating business and together they develop specific and exclusive telephone contacting tasks, as well as the sending of documentation and direct accreditation.

This way, the forecasts suggest the presence of 3,500 national buyers, which would mean an increase of 112% in respect to the 2007 edition.

The 'engines' of the Fair

The keys for success of the "fair of reference for the national wine sector", as it was defined by the newspaper El País last year, are the Centro de Negocios (Business Center), the Galeria del Vino (Wine Gallery) and the Buscador de Negocios (Business Searcher), three tools that aim at the optimization of the relations between buyers and exhibitors.

Two important contact programs between buyers and exhibitors are managed from the Business Center: one of them addressed basically to the possibility that the exhibitors may call for meetings with importers and the program "Contact Exhibitors", whose main aim is to facilitate the international and national buyers attending FENAVIN to schedule their work agendas.

As for the Wine Gallery, it is the great showcase of the Fair, as it houses most of the labels exhibited at the exhibitor's stands and which this year will amount to almost 1,200.
Its main aim is to make available to the professional visitors a quiet and comfortable space to taste beforehand, those wines that are more appealing to them with no need of going around the various pavilions and in this way get to know and choose the products of their interest in advance.

As regards the Business Searcher, this tool, which can be accessed both from the fair's website as from the various computers distributed around the different pavilions of the Fair Premises, allows all those interested in the purchase of wine to accurately choose their objectives. This way, newly arrived buyers to the Fair may optimize their time, previously selecting their objectives by means of detailed information on each and every one of the wineries and taste the wines they are interested in before heading for the concrete stand.

Besides, over 40 parallel activities on wine have been organized in close collaboration with other professional associations and organizations representative in the sector: wine and sport; wine and health; wine and culture and wine and communication.

"Sensory Tasting of our Land's Wines", by Custodio Zamarra.

The sommelier from the prestigious restaurant in Madrid "Zalacaín", Custodio Zamarra, has been in charge of a wine tasting followed by a discussion, which has turned out to be very interesting and well attended. During this "Sensory Tasting of our Land's Wines", for which four wines with hidden labels have been chosen, he has praised the great relation between price and quality of the wines from the Castilla la Mancha region and has encouraged wine lovers to discover the great wine proposals of this productive area.