For the first time the Verona trade fair will be hosting the annual premier presentation of Vino Novello or Italian new wine, a cousin of the better known French Beaujolais Nouveau.
Up until last year the popular wine made its debut in Vicenza at the Salone Novello, the only trade fair which for 20 years was dedicated to Italian new wine.
The presentation will now be staged by the Verona trade fair agency VeronaFiera, which also organizes Vinitaly, Italy's most important trade fair for wine and distilled spirits.
Re-named 'Anteprima Novello', the event was presented here on Tuesday with the participation of Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia who will also be on hand for the gala dinner here at which the first corks of Novello 2008 will be popped.
Novello, Zaia observed, ''is the Italian answer to what was once a totally French phenomenon: Beaujolais''.
''We believe that the quality of our product is proved by the fact that the making of Novello is not just limited to one region but takes place from north to south in scores of vineyards of different sizes,'' the minister added.
After Novello makes its debut on the night of November 4, the Verona fair grounds will host for the following two days an exhibition of this year's production which will be opened to the public but will also cater to wholesalers, retailers, the leading distribution centers and restaurant operators.
Vino Novello, which was officially recognised in 1987, traditionally makes it debut in the first week in November in order to get a jump on Beaujolais Nouveau.
Beaujolais cannot be opened until the third Thursday of November, this year November 20.
Only 0.18% of Italy's wine production is now dedicated to making Novello, the popularity of which appears to have peaked in 2004 when 22 million bottles were produced, compared to some 11.5 million this year.
The number of vineyards producing Novello has also dropped, falling from over 400 in 2004 to 246 this year, and in four years turnover has declined from almost 100 million euros in 2004 to an expected 52.5 million euros in 2008.
Novello, like Beaujolais Nouveau, is a light, fruity red wine which by law must be bottled within a year of the harvest, but in practice is bottled within a few weeks.
Although connoisseurs may snub it, Novello gained popularity, especially among young people, thanks to its clear red color, fruity taste and low alcoholic content, only 11%.
The fruity flavour of new wine is in part due to the fact that the juice of the grapes is not left too long with the grape skins which contain the chemical tannin.
This allows winemakers to blend several types of grapes and the wine can even be served chilled like white wines.
One of the main differences between Novello and Beaujolais is that several of the Italian wines retain some of the carbonation used to accelerate the fermentation process while the French Nouveau is traditionally flat.
The tradition of producing new wine began in the Beaujolais area of France's Burgundy region during the 1950s and has really caught on in Italy in the last decade.
