Other astute producers, consorzi, and organizations have figured it out (Slow Wine, Gambero Rosso, James Suckling, Ian D’Agata, among others), making at least one Texas city a regular stop. But highly visible organizations like Vinitaly continue flying over, drawn to more glamorous destinations. Meanwhile, a locally grown group—the Italy–America Chamber of Commerce Texas—has taken the bull by the horns, exploring the state’s potential for growth not just in Italian wine, but in all things Made in Italy.
So why not Vinitaly? Is this a leadership flub? Or is there some price — institutional or otherwise — that Texas hasn’t paid to earn a stop along the way? The demographics certainly don’t explain the oversight—Texas is exactly where Italian wine is heading. Is this just more of the same old, same old we’ve been seeing from Verona for decades? What's at play here?
 |
| Vinitaly - 1991 (above) and 2016 (below) - Demographically Indistinguishable - Elderly/White/Male |
Let's look at what Vinitaly's own research tells them. According to their 2025 analysis using IWSR data, 75% of U.S. Italian wine consumers are concentrated in about fifteen states, led by California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Illinois. The future consumer? Male (What? No women in these states?), Gen Z or Millennial, of Latin American or African descent, preferably living in Texas, Illinois, California, or other under-explored markets. In Texas specifically, young consumers show strong potential for Chianti and Lambrusco, with interest in both light and structured reds.
The hard numbers back this up. Texas consumes 62.4 million gallons of wine annually—more than New York's 59.3 million gallons. It ranks as the third-largest wine market in the United States. The state's Hispanic population represents exactly the demographic Italian wine needs to court: Hispanics now make up 20% of the total U.S. population, with figures exceeding 50% among younger people in states like California and Texas. These aren't tourists or occasional consumers—they're potential lifelong customers with a cultural affinity for wine as part of daily life.
The economic scale makes the oversight even more inexplicable. Texas boasts a GDP of $2.7 trillion—larger than New York's $2.3 trillion and, ironically, larger than Italy's entire $2.25 trillion economy. If Texas were a country, it would rank as the eighth-largest economy in the world. Vinitaly is literally flying over an economy bigger than the country it represents.
Yet Vinitaly USA's trajectory tells a different story. Veronafiere's January 2026 announcement confirmed what observers already knew: the inaugural event landed in Chicago in 2024, returned to Chicago in 2025, and will move to New York in 2026. The historical Vinitaly U.S. tours (roadshows) regularly hit Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC—but rarely, if at all, Dallas, Austin or Houston. Has Texas been perpetually consigned to 2nd tier status?
The press release acknowledges that New York is "the third national market after California and Texas," then proceeds to explain why they chose... New York. Their reasoning? "The choice of New York City is in response to a precise market logic. The area brings together importers, distributors with multi-state coverage, central purchasing centers..."
"Precise market logic"—a phrase that sounds strategic until you realize it's just institutional reflex dressed in business language. They're choosing gatekeepers over consumers, established infrastructure over growth markets, comfort over opportunity.
This is performative strategy—going where other important people go so everyone can feel important together. It’s not market expansion; it’s a networking event with a trade show attached. New York feels like where serious wine business happens, so that’s where Vinitaly goes, regardless of what their own commissioned research tells them. The data sits in spreadsheets in Verona showing Texas as a primary growth market, and still they book ballrooms in Midtown Manhattan.
"If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change." Lampedusa understood that even preservation requires tactical adaptation. Vinitaly's leadership hasn't learned that lesson yet. They simply return to the same cities, announce it as strategy, and expect applause. Why bother with even the appearance of evolution when you can just repeat the circuit indefinitely?
Meanwhile, the IACC Texas has been building the foundation since 2015. Taste of Italy now runs in Houston, Dallas, and El Paso and has expanded to other cities, including Tulsa. The Houston event alone draws more than 300 attendees and features 70-plus producers. They've created culturally intelligent programming like the "Texas BBQ & Italian Wine" seminar, pairing Lambrusco and Chianti with smoked brisket from local pitmasters. It's the kind of cultural translation that actually works—creating lasting relationships rather than transactional moments.
The IACC events have proven the market exists and is hungry for Italian wine. They've done the hard work of building infrastructure, relationships, and credibility where none previously existed and demonstrated what's possible when you actually listen to a market rather than impose assumptions on it. More importantly, they've shown that success in Texas isn't theoretical — it's operational. That this groundwork has been laid not by a national trade body, but by a regional chamber with limited resources only underscores the scale of the missed opportunity. The IACC Texas hasn't just identified the market; it has validated it, year after year, through consistent presence, cultural fluency, and results. Kudos and bravo to them and their enablers.
Which makes Vinitaly’s absence even more puzzling. The Italian government has designated wine as strategic in U.S.–Italy trade relations. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has set ambitious export targets of €700 billion by 2027, with agri-food—including wine—representing a significant component. Yet Veronafiere appears to be ignoring—or taking for granted—a market that local organizers have cultivated for a decade, and that Vinitaly’s own data identifies as critical for future growth.
At a deeper level, Vinitaly's blind spot has little to do with Texas and everything to do with institutional comfort. The organization isn't optimizing for market growth—it's optimizing for effort minimization. Going to Texas requires admitting their strategy has been wrong for twenty years, learning to speak to demographics who don't care about Brunello mythology, and building relationships from scratch in cities where they have no legacy connections. That's hard. Going to New York is easy—you know the importers, the venues, the wine writers who'll show up. Texas offers no legacy Italian-American mythology, no inherited prestige, and no shortcut to national validation. What it does require is adaptation, cultural translation, and the willingness to meet a market on its own terms. Success in Texas would not confirm Vinitaly's long-standing strategy—it would expose how badly it has failed to evolve. For an institution built on repetition masquerading as tradition, that kind of reckoning is far more threatening than simply flying over.
Perhaps the issue is mental maps frozen in the 1990s: New York equals Italian-American stronghold; Chicago equals Midwest distribution hub. Texas equals… what? Oil and cattle? The cultural myopia runs deep. Are they still stuck in JR’s Dallas of the 1980s? The state’s demographic transformation and wine consumption data apparently don’t register as worthy of Vinitaly’s attention.
Or maybe it’s institutional inertia. Established relationships with chambers of commerce in New York and Chicago. Existing infrastructure. The gravitational pull of tradition. Change requires will, vision, and leadership—qualities that haven’t exactly defined Veronafiere’s decision-making over the past decades, as anyone who’s watched the organization struggle to solve basic operational problems year after year can attest.
But there’s something else at work here: status signaling. New York, San Francisco, Chicago—these register as “serious” cities in the minds of European trade organizations. Texas? That still reads as cowboys and oil. Never mind that Houston has more Fortune 500 headquarters than any U.S. city except New York, or that Dallas-Fort Worth is one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. The shortsightedness is stunning. They’re leaving a fortune on the table because the market doesn’t match their aesthetic preferences.
There’s a broader pattern here, one I’ve been documenting for forty years: the Italian wine industry’s strange inability to adapt even when survival demands it. Data doesn’t change behavior when behavior is about identity, not outcomes. Vinitaly isn’t a market-optimization organization—it’s a tradition-preservation organization. And traditions, by definition, resist change even when the data screams for it. They study demographics, commission research, identify growth markets—and then continue doing exactly what they’ve always done. The IACC Texas has handed them a roadmap. The data supports the strategy. The market is waiting.
Someone will eventually write the case study: “How Italy Lost Texas.” The answer will be simple—they never really showed up.
---
Note: This piece was prompted by Veronafiere's January 22, 2026 press release announcing Vinitaly USA 2026 in New York City.
No comments:
Post a Comment