The Wine Economist’s World Tour will be back on the (virtual) road in the next few months. Here are preliminary details about upcoming events that might be of interest to readers of this newsletter.

Wine2Wine 2020

The 7th edition of Wine2Wine, Focus 2020, will take place November 23-24, 2020. Usually held in beautiful Verona, this year’s program will be virtual.  The wine business in the post-COVID-19 era is the over-arching theme.

Focus 2020 features a quite fantastic group of speakers and topics. The program is wide-ranging and of course economic topics are accorded due attention. I will be talking about the problem of unstable exchange rates in the new normal economic environment, for example, and another session will analyze the prospects of peace in the US-EU trade war, where wine is caught in the crossfire.

WineFuture 2021

WineFuture 2021 is an ambitious event designed to help wine industry actors make sense of the perfect storm caused by simultaneous economic recession, COVID-19 pandemic, and global climate crisis. The event is scheduled for February 23-25, 2021.  I’ll be speaking about economic challenges and opportunities. The list of speakers is a who’s who of the wine world, so I’m flattered to be invited to participate.

Although the official event is a few months away, the important issues that need to be discussed won’t wait, so WineFuture is organizing a pre-conference series of free weekly webinars on key topics. Rabobank’s Stephen Rannekleiv and I will analyze some of the key economic issues in the first webinar on November 4, 2020.

Unified Wine & Grape Symposium

The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium is North America’s largest wine industry gathering. Both the conference and trade show, scheduled for January 26-29, will be on-line in 2021. The program, still in development, will be released in a few weeks and I get the impression that it will be even more ambitious than in previous years if that’s possible.

I will once again be moderating the State of the Industry session and making brief comments about the global wine economy. I wish we could all meet up in person in Sacramento, but that’s not really an option this year. So I look forward to seeing everyone on-line.

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Use the links above to learn more about these events and check back frequently to get updated information.