The external promotion and sale of Spanish wine will add on June 2 and 3 a new instrument in Castilla-La Mancha: Fenavin Match. It is an initiative promoted by the Provincial Council of Ciudad Real to articulate direct commercial meetings between wineries and buyers in odd-numbered years when the National Wine Fair does not take place.
The president of the Provincial Council of Ciudad Real, Miguel Ángel Valverde, and the second vice president and political head of Fenavin, Sonia González, have detailed this Wednesday the keys to this new format, which will take place in the Ciudad Real Exhibition Hall on June 2 and 3 and will have a budget exceeding 1.2 million euros.
The event is born with the goal of attracting more than 200 international buyers, in addition to a similar number of national buyers, with the aim of strengthening the commercial activity of around 200 wineries and cooperatives from all over the country that are expected to join this call.
During the presentation, the provincial officials have insisted that Fenavin Match is conceived as a strictly professional meeting, focused on business and far from the classic fair model.
In this vein, they have highlighted that there will be no stands or entrance for the general public, since these areas will be converted into work offices reserved for meetings, in an environment designed exclusively to foster commercial contacts between wineries and buyers.
Therefore, the event will likewise dispense with parallel activities, with the purpose of avoiding elements that detract attention and concentrating all resources on the generation of operations.
“Only contacts, only opportunities, only business,” they have summarized from the organization to describe the philosophy of this new model, which aims to maintain the commercial dynamic of the sector in the years in which Fenavin is not held.
The configuration of Fenavin Match will include individual offices for previously arranged meetings, a common area for simultaneous encounters, and a business center that will be reinforced as one of the essential axes of the event.
As a complement, a wine gallery will be enabled with more than 600 references from 300 national wineries and cooperatives, which will be permanent from the event and around which different wine promotion actions will subsequently be articulated.
One of the distinctive features will be the prior organization of meetings through the “Contact with” tool, which will make it possible for wineries and buyers to close their appointments before the start of the event. Thus, each attendee will arrive with an agenda defined in advance, which will allow for better use of time and increase the effectiveness of commercial contacts.
In terms of participation, the organization has set itself the goal of bringing together 200 international buyers from more than 50 countries, in addition to national buyers considered strategic. A challenge that, as Valverde has admitted, is faced in a complex international context, although he has argued that precisely this scenario reinforces the need to promote tools like this to consolidate the position of Spanish wine.
The president of the Provincial Council has stressed that Fenavin Match also arises to fill the gap that occurred in odd years, when the fair was not organized, both commercially and in terms of institutional and media visibility. Therefore, he has maintained that this proposal will help sustain Fenavin’s positioning in the sector over time.
Likewise, he/she has highlighted that it is a project “intimately linked” to the fair, so that the wineries that already participate in Fenavin will have preference in this new format, which aspires to consolidate itself as a stable event within the professional calendar.
Finally, Valverde has announced that Fenavin’s internationalization strategy will continue with new commercial actions in markets such as the Philippines and South Korea, with the intention of attracting buyers and expanding business opportunities in emerging destinations, without neglecting traditional markets, where the growth margin is more limited.
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