Dear friends,

The Roma VinoExcellence & Merano WineFestival is born!!!!

A new initiative of the Merano International WineFestival & Culinaria (MIWF), the famous wine annual meeting that, after 18 years of success and experience, is now generally considered Italy’s most important wine event along with Vinitaly, launches a new wine event dedicated to Italy’s finest wines.
A wine event especially conceived and designed by Helmut Koecher and Ian D’Agata. Their aim has been to create an altogether new and different wine event that is both prestigious and of academic significance.

Helmut Köcher, the President of the MIWF, much admired and respected in Italy for his eighteen years at the helm of the MIWF, and Ian D'Agata, generally considered Italy’s most credible wine writer and who is in charge, among other projects, of the Italian wine section for Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar, have imaginatively recreated the spirit of the original Merano International WineFestival & Culinaria, at which no more than one hundred estates were selected.

A very special wine event that can be summarized in six points:

1. The 100 estates were personally selected by Helmuth Köcher and Ian D’Agata, without any tasting panels or other experts involved. The estates selected were chosen on the basis of their long production of fine wines and significance to the specific wine territory they represent, as well as smaller, recently founded estates, often family run, that have been producing some of Italy’s finest wines for only three years or more. This is not a fixed and unchangeable selection, but one that can be refreshed each year, according to the developments of the highest quality Italian winemaking.
2. The selection includes 100 of Italy’s very best estates, some of them already acknowledged as Italy’s greatest names in wines, known the world over, others small, as yet little known estates that produce exceptionally fine wines but that for a variety of reasons are not as well known to the general public.
3. Three conferences of international importance, with state-of-the-art lectures and presentations by some of the world’s most important winemakers and personalities
4. A national and international media presence organised specifically for this event by Helmut Koecher
5. An absolutely exceptional panel of experts, created specifically for Roma VinoExcellence by Ian D’Agata, who will guide tastings and moderate the conferences.
6. Great tastings and international wine encounters with old vintages, rare wines and new cult wines