Brunello di Montalcino: how a typical wine could revive a poor country‐village

Abstract

None of the numerous food products that comprise the Italian food tradition can boast of business revitalisation as much as that which involved the wine industry in Italy and in the rest of the world in the last decade. This is not the appropriate moment to consider the reasons for this change, nor is it the right place to compare the industrial situations of that time with those present today. Rapidly covering the field of the extensive history of the wine business, it is sufficient to cite certain simplified facts in order to show how the end user of the product – the consumer – has dramatically changed his consumption history, which initiated the process of regeneration of the business, a process never before seen, in the world of agricultural industries. The companies in the vine‐growing and wine‐making business have been both the driving force and the beneficiaries of this state of affairs. Indeed, to have a clearer picture, a hypothetical external person, observing the wine business panorama today, would notice clear features and company models, that are unrelated to the historical past of the industry.