9  Georgian Wineries Participate in the Slow Wine Fair in Bologna

On February 23-25, the famous natural wine festival, Slow Wine Fair, is held in Italy, specifically in the center of the Emilia-Romagna region - the city of Bologna. The event is hosted by the 15th and 20th pavilions of the BolognaFiere exhibition space in Bologna.

Slow Wine is an international wine festival based on the Slow Food concept and aims to present ecologically clean, as they say - real wine to the exhibition guests. This festival has been held for only one year. However, last year's exhibition attracted a fairly large number of wine visitors, which is why this year's festival has become three days instead of two.

The festival especially attracted the attention of many wine enthusiasts, wine merchants, and industry professionals, who booked tickets in advance. This year, the Slow Wine Fair is hosting small wineries from 26 countries, a record number since the global COVID-19 pandemic.

On February 23, the Slow Wine Fair invited wine enthusiasts and professionals to explore the modern wine market. Event participants tasted thousands of wine samples from around the world, and wine lovers also had the opportunity to attend wine-themed conferences, participate in discussions, and wine master classes offered by winemakers and experts.

Nine small wineries, members of the Natural Wine Association, participated in this important event. These wineries are:

1. Naferebi
2. Niabi Marani
3. Manavi Wines
4. Gotsa Wine
5. Anapea
6. Andria Wine
7. Kolagis
8. Doremi
9. Our Wine

The Georgian National Wine Agency helped these wineries bring their wines to Italy and participate in the event itself.

Georgian winemakers have been positively describing the three-day Bologna Wine Festival from the very first day of the event.

Niko Beriashvili, "Niabi Marani": “It’s a very good event. First of all, I met a lot of wine lovers and professionals. I gained a lot of experience in presenting Georgian wine. I think it’s the right vision to combine natural wine with organic food, and I was convinced that Georgian wine has a place in the big and worthy family of Europe.”

Nika Jeiranashvili, "Kolagis": “This is our first time at such a large-scale event. We are hosting about 14 thousand visitors over three days. In addition to winemakers, journalists and wine experts from different countries of the world are visiting us. We also met nutritional supplement specialists. Georgian winemakers also taste wines from other countries and compare them to ours. It is desirable to know these flavors in order to understand what we are dealing with and who our competitors are in Europe. We get to know the approaches and methodologies of other countries, which are often very different from ours. We hope to see importers because we want our wines to reach European countries. More and more people know about amber wine, and this is important.”

Giorgi Aivaziani, "Manavi Wines": “This event is the largest I have ever been to. As the organizer told us, 1050 wineries are represented. The majority of them are from Italy. There is a section dedicated to different countries, and we have a pretty good location. There are also a lot of visitors because it is impossible for so many wineries to interest only a few people. The concept of Slow Food is based on the presence of as many fresh products as possible, both in terms of food and drink. The emphasis is not on quantity. The main thing here is quality. This concept attracts people who think about nature and quality. This directly corresponds to the themes that natural winemaking preaches. The festival is a good platform to increase the popularity of Georgian wine in a wine country like Italy. Many people know that Georgia is the cradle of wine, but they don’t often get the opportunity to taste our wine. It is interesting that here they are especially interested in qvevri wines on skin contact.”

On February 24, the event is exclusively dedicated to industry professionals - buyers, restaurateurs, wine shop owners, importers, distributors, chefs, and sommeliers. These professionals are eager to find the best wine samples, which will be evaluated by Slow Food and a panel of experts.

The 2025 Slow Wine Fair will end on February 25.

                                                                   Levan Sebiskveradze