The Vinitaly Marathon w/ Stevie Kim, Vinitaly

As the world's most prominent Italian wine fair, Vinitaly attracts ~4,000 producers and turns the entire city of Verona into Vinitaly. As Managing Director of Vinitaly, Stevie Kim has built a vast, international community around Vinitaly and its many other products surrounding it, becoming a "Vinitaly Marathon." Stevie goes into depth about why each product was started and how it plugs into the entire Vinitaly ecosystem in part 1 of this 2-part series. 

Detailed Show Notes: 

Stevie's background: born in Korea, grew up in New York, married an Italian, and moved to Italy; Veronafiere recruited her to lead Vinitaly

The Vinitaly "Marathon" (2025 schedule)

• Vinitaly Int’l Academy ("VIA") - 5 days 
• 5 Star Wines - 3 days (April 1-3)
• OperaWine - 1 day (April 5)
• Vinitaly - 4 days (April 6-9)

Also, do events outside of Verona (New York, China, Hong Kong)

Vinitaly - established in 1967 in Verona

• It started as ½ pavilion, now 14 pavilions
• Largest Italian wine event, primarily B2B
• The entire town of Verona becomes Vinitaly
• Vinitaly in the city events for consumers
• ~4k wineries (~60% of export market), accessories, winemaking equipment
• About building long-term relationships - "the Italian way" - not just about doing business vs. Prowein's more business-oriented

OperaWine

• Partnered with Wine Spectator as the most influential entity for Italian wine
• The winemaker or principal must pour
• By invitation only, each producer chosen (130 producers) gets 10 invites

VIA

• 1,300 candidates so far, 398 certified Italian Wine Ambassadors
• Used to do Vinitaly tours and masterclasses globally, now transformed to VIA
• Developed based on Stevie's experience building a medial master's program that created a deep community
• Faculty - Sarah Heller MW, Attilio Scienza - vine geneticist
• Difficult exam, deep and wide syllabus primarily based on grape varieties, uses Italian Wine Unplugged 2.0 as the textbook
• Has a course that includes 4 days of tasting ~300 wines before the exam
• Requires a group video project to ensure ambassadors can speak about wines
• Creates a big community around candidates and ambassadors - more important than the material itself

5 Star Wines (fka Vinitaly Int’l Competition)

• Gets international judges & VIA community opportunity to taste and rate Italian wines
• Helps producers - 90+ scores get a diploma during Vinitaly to display, which helps attendees navigate booths
• Did a masterclass for producers w/ top scoring wines on why they scored highly, which helped them understand quality better
• Every tasting panel has an enologist, enabling the international community to connect with Italian winemakers

Wine2Wine business forum (Nov - after harvest, before Christmas)

• The goal is to help producers better prepare for Vinitaly
• Historically, they had 40-70 workshops on business topics
• 2023 - did tastings where wine critics taught how they assess and rate wines
• 2024 - getting an overhaul, no parallel session, 8 plenary sessions, 6 tastings, new structured networking - rooms led by specialists w/ 10-12 attendees

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