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| Ecce Homo |
There is real data in the release, if you look for it. In 2025, 61.4% of Sicilian wineries reported an increase in visitors. Seventy-four percent of those visitors were foreign, primarily European and American. These are not trivial numbers. But they are self-reported, by wineries with a stake in the answer, in a survey commissioned by the association that organized the event. Meanwhile, the Assovini Instagram feed showed what the event actually looked like: conferences and panels, conducted in Italian (with hopefully instant translation provided for the 74% of the foreign visitors the journalists in the crowd represent?). For 58.3% of wineries, wine tourism accounts for roughly 10% of total turnover. Ten percent. That is not a boom. That is a promising footnote being dressed for a keynote.
Then there is the matter of Generation Z. Vincenzo Russo, Professor of Consumer Psychology and Neuromarketing at IULM University in Milan — neuromarketing being a field that did not exist when I first tasted a Sicilian wine at the ripe old age of 20 — informed the conference that wine communication must adapt to "the new characteristics of Generation Z's brain plasticity." Brain plasticity. At a wine conference. In Palermo. What this means, exactly, was not elaborated upon, though one imagines it has something to do with shorter attention spans and the preference for experiences over information — which, if true, raises the question of whether a full-day conference with panel discussions is the ideal format for reaching them. Neuroscience also tells us that the human brain does not fully develop until around age 25. The survey found that 51% of Italians aged 20 to 24 are drinking wine — the highest figure ever recorded for that age group. I am not drawing a conclusion. I am simply noting that both of these things are true.
One hundred journalists flown in from around the world, walked through a renovated 18th century palazzo, a baroque oratory and a deconsecrated church, all of it underwritten by the Regional Department of Agriculture, all of it anchored by a commissioned study and a panel of professors and AI consultants — the whole elaborate machinery running in service of a single, unselfconscious claim: that what Sicily offers is authenticity. The apparatus required to produce and distribute that concept has become indistinguishable from the thing it is selling. Somewhere on the island, the Salvo Fotis of the world are tying up Nerello Mascalese shoots on the slopes of Etna without a moderator or a slide deck. That's the "journey."
To be fair, Sicily has come a long way. The wines are better than they have ever been. The recent master class in Dallas that I attended attests to the honest efforts to get the word out about Sicilian wine. Those kind of events should be encouraged. But events like this raise a question worth asking plainly: who is this for? The journalists who attended that already know Sicily? The producers who already know each other? The government funding that underwrites a message the government wants distributed? Is this what you get, in the end — a room full of well-dressed, well-fed and like-minded souls, applauding the authenticity of an island that was doing fine before they called the conference to order?
The formula is familiar. Lead with data. Invoke the young. Mention AI. Say "journey." Say "authentic." Take a selfie in a baroque palazzo. Does this sound like a story worth living? Or is this simply the same old bromide the Italian wine community falls for, again and again?
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| ♫ Nothing but blue skies do I see ♫ |