ENOFORUM 2023, the wine world’s innovation in Vicenza
A success beyond the most optimistic expectations, this in a nutshell is the comment on the 20th edition of Enoforum (the 12th in attendance in Italy), an international technical-scientific congress of the wine industry celebrated from May 16 to 18, 2023 at the Vicenza Convention Centre of Italian Exhibition Group.
Gianni Trioli, President of Vinidea,the event’s organising company, was delighted: “It was not easy to repeat the numbers of the 2019 edition, the last to be held in Italy before the pandemic, and instead we managed to do even better: 1,300 technical participants, 135 reports (30% from foreign researchers), 55 companies presenting the latest technological innovations. With these numbers, Enoforum confirms itself as the largest conference in the sector throughout Europe.”
Effectively, Enoforum, organised by Vinidea in cooperation with SIVE (SocietĂ Italiana di Viticoltura ed Enologia), Assoenologi and Unione Italiana Vini, has over the years become the technical-scientific congress of reference at the European level dedicated to innovation in viticulture and oenology, where all the innovations from public and private research worldwide are presented. The special characteristic of the event is to bring together the three pillars of the wine industry: wine producers, the world of research and supplier companies.
During the three days of the conference, two conference halls (one dedicated to international research, with simultaneous translation, the other to Italian research), a tasting room, a ‘demo’ room, a poster area, a media partner area and an exhibition area where the main companies in the sector could meet; in summary, an unprecedented edition in terms of quantity and quality of the available content:
- 135 papers on the latest innovations for the vineyard and winery, presented by:
60 independent speakers, from universities or public research centers
40 international speakers, from 10 wine-growing countries worldwide partly as a result of the videoconference arrangements
26 speakers from the Enoforum Prize(*) - 7 research projects: regional, national and European
- 20 posters on new technologies and knowledge, in addition to the oral presentations
- 55 companies presenting innovations resulting from their R&D activities
- 10 tasting sessions to understand the sensory effects of innovations
- 10 demos to learn how innovations are used in practice
- 35 exhibitors to learn more with company experts
- Countless networking opportunities to engage with hundreds of colleagues from all over Italy.
- An opportunity to get to know local wines and products, as witnessed by the partnership with Consorzio Durello, the protagonist of tastings and Master Classes.
There was unanimous satisfaction not only from the participants, who rushed from one room to another to follow as many events as possible but also from the invited speakers, who highlighted the quality of the content proposed and the excellent organisation. In particular, GĂ©rard Liger-Belair, head of the Effervescence & Champagne Research Unit at the University of Reims and a world authority in the field of ‘bubbles’, who opened the proceedings of the third conference day, commented: “I am particularly grateful to the organisers for inviting me to Enoforum, and I am truly impressed by the size of the event, the quality of the presentations and the impeccable organisation: I doubt it would have been quite as successful in France.”
Those who may have missed some of the presentations need not worry, however: all recordings of the interventions will progressively be available online on the internet magazine Infowine.com, with priority access for Premium subscribers.
Launched in 2000 in Montesilvano (PE) on the initiative of Vinidea and SIVE, Enoforum has grown in importance over the years and has been further enriched by international editions in Portugal (Infowine Forum), Spain, the United States and soon in Chile and even France (Sparkling Wine Forum). It was also the first entirely online congress due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, which replaced the Spanish edition originally scheduled to take place in Zaragoza. The previous Italian in-presence edition, also held in Vicenza in May 2019, had been attended by around 1,200 participants.
The Enoforum Award 2023
(*) The Enoforum Award was conceived as a global competition offering the scientific community the opportunity to present innovative research related to the wine industry. Approximately 100 research papers were submitted worldwide, and subjected to an initial evaluation by the international scientific committee. During Enoforum Web Scientists, held on 13 March, the 36 best-ranked papers were presented orally. In real-time, all participants were invited to evaluate the submitted works to determine the winner and finalists.
