Created by Business Strategies, it will be dedicated to Chinese wine lovers

Will open April 2 in Shanghai Taste Italy! Wine Academy (意会! 葡萄酒 学院), the first Italian wine school devoted entirely to Chinese wine enthusiasts, from Business Strategies.

This was announced today at the Chinese Wine Summit in Shanghai the CEO of florentine society, the only Italian team invited to the event, Silvana Ballotta, and Jancis Robinson, winecritic, Financial Times writer and journalist. “From the US to emerging markets, the internationalization processes of Italian wine have passed and continue to pass through to consumer education – explained Ballotta at the event reserved for Chinese wine professionals -. We must propose a long-life education system to the final consumer. We must not forget that to entrench the culture of wine and in particular the Italian one, you have to engage ordinary people with simple and effective information, leaving the technicalities to the experts “. For Jancis Robinson, speaking at the round table: “The attention of Chinese consumers has shifted from hard liquor to lighter products such as wine. Today we face a new generation of consumers, young people, more and more self-confident and selective in the choice of wines; our task – said Robinson – is to give them the tools to make these choices with awareness and maturity”.

Silvana Ballotta (the first from left), CEO of Business Strategies, presents the Italian Wine Academy in Shanghai – Image source: © Business Strategies

The school, sponsored by Ismea, will be located in the district of Xintiandi, the most populous city in the world, known for its Western setting and openness to European wine, and will offer courses dedicated to Wine Lovers (I and II level), to which also follow the courses Wine Professionals (level I and II). The approach to wine, from the culture of the product to the tasting, will be mediated by a constant attention and “Italian character education”, starting from an overall presentation of the Belpaese excellencies. The teacher will be Sam Chen, certificated Sommelier Wset, Wset teacher and speaker for several events on Italian wine, as well as brand ambassador for some Italian wineries.

“In China there is a desire of Italian wine – said the CEO of the florentine company specialized on the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises -, it also shows by the numbers of entries to the Academy, sold out until September. To intercept this interest it takes a widespread strategy, promotion, testing of integration mode of Italian wine with Chinese gastronomy and to the knowledge of the Chinese market. Among the initiatives that we have in the field for 2016 – concluded Ballotta – at Vinitaly we will present a survey of Chinese consumers with a Nomisma focus on the 20-35 age group, peers of American Millennials “.