Vinexpo to hold wine trade event in New York

Vinexpo is to hold a wine trade show in New York City in March next year – the Bordeaux-based fair organiser’s first exhibition in the Americas since 2002.

Vinexpo New York is a new wine and spirits trade fair that will be held annually in March.

The show, which will be held at Manhattan’s Javits Convention Center on 5-6 March 2018, will be the first time Vinexpo has hosted a drinks trade event in the Americas for more than 15 years: Vinexpo hosted the inaugural Vinexpo Americas in 2002, which saw 600 exhibitors descend on New York in November.

However, this is not the first time since 2002 that Vinexpo has attempted to do a drinks event in New York, and the exhibition organiser had planned to host a consumer event in the city on 16-18 November 2012, called Rendez-Vous by Vinexpo.

This would have been Vinexpo’s second New York show, and its first ever consumer event, but in July 2012 the event was cancelled due to a lack of take-up from brand owners for the show, which, like the planned trade event for next year, was due to be held at the Javits Convention Center.

Speaking to the drinks business yesterday about the decision to host a show next year in North America, which has been named Vinexpo New York – rather than Vinexpo Americas – CEO of the show organiser, Guillaume Deglise, said that it was vital that Vinexpo was present on the three key continents for the wine business: Europe, Asia and the Americas.

“It is so important for Vinexpo to be on all three continents where wine and spirits are biggest,” he said.

He also stressed the key role of the North American market for the wine trade.

The US imports 1.1bn bottles of wine annually

“The US is now the number one market for wine consumption in the world and it is evolving very fast,” he commented.

The US currently imports 1.1 billion bottles of wine each year, with the IWSR forecasting 6.9% growth by 2020.

This market is also driving a worldwide increase in imported spirits, buying almost 1.2 billion bottles annually with a very strong bias towards all categories of premium spirits, according to Vinexpo-IWSR research.

Furthermore, he said that the launch of Vinexpo New York was not a one-off, or a biennial event, telling db that this would be an annual fair – unlike Vinexpo Bordeaux and Hong Kong, which are held every two years.

According to Deglise the two-day trade event is designed to aid wine and spirits brands that want to gain a stronger foothold in the US market, as well as those who are looking for new distributors.

He also told db that the fair, which is being organised jointly with American events business Diversified Communications, will be “affordable”, with stands starting at $5,000.

Stressing that it was strictly a trade-only event, he said, “Vinexpo New York is for importers, distributors and retailers: the three components of the three-tier system.”

As for the timing, he described March as a “good time”, because it was late enough in the year to avoid the risk of snowstorms, but early enough to avoid clashing with Vinexpo Hong Kong – which is held in May every two years – and Vinexpo Bordeaux, the biennial fair in June.

By hosting it in the first week of March, Vinexpo New York will also take place around 10 days before ProWein, which is normally held in the third week of the same month.

Concluding, Deglise pointed out that Vinexpo New York would be the first wine trade event in the US that is organised by a non-American company.

The launch of this new trade fair for America follows news in January 2017 of Vinexpo Explorer – a new annual event aimed at accelerating trade with up-and-coming wine regions, which will see wine buyers taken to vineyards in a host region as part of a two-day business-building programme.

In 2014 Vinexpo expanded into the Japanese market with the launch of a third biennial fair, Vinexpo Tokyo. Repeated in November 2016, the new fair has been hailed a success.

In 2013, Vinexpo announced the addition of a fair for Mainland China, with the launch of Vinexpo Beijing on 2-3 June 2014. However, in October 2013, chairman of Vinexpo Overseas Xavier de Eizaguirre said that the Beijing show was being cancelled due to a slowdown in the growth of imported wine sales in China as well as the lack of demand from potential exhibitors who have already invested money and resources in other events.

Vinexpo’s mixture of success and failure with its expansion overseas certainly proves the ambitious, pioneering nature of this wine and spirits show business, further confirmed by its decision to head back to the US.

Key points:

• Vinexpo New York is a wine and spirits trade fair that will be held annually in March.

• The inaugural two-day show will be held on 5 and 6 March 2018 at the Javits Convention Center in the heart of Manhattan.

• Vinexpo New York will be an annual event organised jointly with American firm Diversified Communications, a leading event manager in the US.

• The launch of Vinexpo New York means that Vinexpo is now the only independent international wine and spirits trade show organiser to cover Europe, Asia and the Americas.

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