Wine Enthusiast’s Sip of Italy 2024

More than 400 wine industry insiders and consumers crowded into the riverside digs of City Winery in New York City on Tuesday, September 10 for Sip of Italy, the most recent installation of Wine Enthusiast’s popular Sip series, which highlights the most exciting wine regions across the globe. The event enjoyed a packed house and bottle-stacked booths representing nearly 50 wineries, creating a mosaic of Italian wine-producing areas.

To kick off the event, Wine Enthusiast Writers-at-Large and Italian wine reviewers Danielle Callegari and Jeff Porter moderated an electric discussion about the state of Italian wine in the American market. They tapped a trio of experts, who shared a wealth of unique insights: Morgan Pruitt, the director of retail at Eataly North America; Sarah Looper, the sommelier of New York City Italian eatery Il Buco and owner of wine education platform Loopersomm LLC; and Michael Laudenslager, the wine director of Italian wood-fired cuisine specialist Peasant NYC.

Porter greeted the crowd with a rousing “ciaowdy, y’all”—an apropos portmanteau of “ciao” and “howdy.” The current quality of Italian wine is high and getting higher, he explained. Porter and Callegari would know, since they taste 5,000 Italian bottles a year between the two of them.

“The cost-quality relationship remains excellent,” Callegari said. “The only problem we have is that there’s so much good Italian wine that we have to think about better ways of communicating it, so that people can understand what’s out there and get their hands on it and enjoy it the way they ought to be.”

Italian wine imports to the United States have increased by 5.8% across all categories over the last six months. However, it’s happening against a backdrop of losses across the broader industry. Porter noted that during the same time period, U.S. wine consumption decreased by a concerning 8%.

Wine sales are cyclical, of course, and the industry has experienced downturns before. Still, the big question, Porter stressed, is “Are you willing to adapt to the narrative and culture that’s around us?” To that end, the panel talked about areas of Italian wine they’re currently championing—and what could help the marketplace weather shifts in consumer drinking habits.

If someone comes to any of Eataly’s wine shops and asks for a white wine, Pruitt recommends “Anything that starts with a V.” Vermentino and Vernaccia are great options, but he’s particularly a fan of Verdicchio.

“I like the minerality, I like the tension,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s a wine that works for geeks. It can age really well. Or it can be for your… difficult aunt, who’s going to text you a picture from a restaurant, and say ‘What should I choose?’”

On the restaurant side, Looper noted a sharp uptick in interest in orange wine, so much that she thinks it’s supplanting rosé as a trend. “They’re great food wines to bridge a variety of proteins, and macerated white wines… have existed forever,” she says. “It’s interesting to see how they’re just catching fire now.”

The panel also pointed out underrated Italian wine regions worthy of deeper exploration by consumers and industry folk alike. “Champagne is overrated, and I’m not afraid to say it,” said Laudenslager. The good stuff is expensive, and it’s hard to convince consumers to splash out the cash. On the other hand, “Italy is the most underrated [region] in sparkling wine, period,” he countered. “Prosecco and Franciacorta [are] probably the most familiar, but Trento DOC—I’m the biggest fan and the biggest promoter of it.”

Big picture, the future of Italian wine—and wine in general—rests on bringing drinkers into the fold. “For any of us to hold knowledge from anyone, it’s a sin,” Porter said.

Watch the full panel below to go deeper into the state of Italian wine in the U.S.