Yesterday, May 21, was the first “National Wine Day” in Italy held by the Italian Sommelier Society (AIS) .

The new President of AIS, Antonello Maietta, spoke about this day at Vinitaly earlier this year. I went to his press conference during the fair and was very excited to see the new work that the association is doing globally.

Italy is also at the head of the Worldwide Sommelier Association this year.

Maietta is mindful of the drop in Italian wine consumption, down to less than 40 liters per head, and the lack of knowledge among consumers. He announced that he wants that to change all of that. Italy’s first national wine day is a step in the right direction to educate consumers about the value of wine in a larger sense, linked to cultural traditions and Italian history.

If Italian wine is suffering a drop in consumption internally, it is doing extremely well abroad and is the largest component of Italy’s agricultural export sector . In 2010, revenues from the export of wine were up to 3.9 billion euro.

I’m sorry I missed out on yesterday’s fanfair. Apparently, AIS held a series of seminars throughout Italy from the Alps to
the Mediterranean.

I’m a huge fan of AIS and have been for over a decade. One of my proudest days was when I got my certificate from AIS in June 2004.