(18 May) - It is just started the 2012 edition of Viva Vino LA, the premiere Italian wine festival organized by the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West, The North American Sommelier Association, and Please the Palate. The event, hosted by some of Los Angeles finest restaurants and retailers and providing dinners, tastings and seminars, will end tomorrow night. Viva Vino offers an extraordinary variety of events to discover Italian wines made with native grapes. Lots of opportunities for participating companies who have the opportunity to meet not only importers, buyers and sellers, but also consumers and media from Los Angeles and Southern California, one of the largest markets in the United States. During the opening ceremony, the Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles Giuseppe Perrone emphasized the leading role that Italy has in the industry, as the first exporter of wine in the United States, referring to the positive trend of Italian wine in the early months of 2012. The secret of the success of Italian wine production, as concluded the Consul, is a combination of experience, a century-old tradition and innovation skills to meet the increasingly sophisticated palates of today's consumers. (red)

ITALIAN WINE EXPORTS REACH RECORD LEVELS
The exports of Italian wine have passed for the first time the amount of 4 billion euros, 13% up over last year. This is what emerges from a Coldiretti analysis of the trends identified by ISTAT in the first eleven months of 2011. Wine has become the most important agricultural export, with more than and half - Coldiretti remarks - sold in the European Union countries, with Germany and the UK (+10%) as leaders. Around a quarter of foreign sales is in the United States (+16% in 2011). The real surprise - Coldiretti says - comes from Asian countries and China, where wine exports have almost doubled (+80%), while they continue to grow in Russia (+16%). A good omen for the 2011 vintage that - Coldiretti states - reached an historical low of around 40 million hectoliters. As a result of this fall - Coldiretti concludes - Italy has lost the primacy of wine production in favor of France, jumped over with 50.2 million hectoliters (+11% compared to 2010)."