Vinexpo returns to New York next week

Around 500 exhibitors and 3,000 buyers will gather at the Jacob Javits Center next week for Vinexpo, some 15 years after the trade show made its first foray into the United States.

Vinexpo will return to New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Monday and Tuesday next week (5 and 6 March) with almost 500 exhibitors from more than 20 countries and an expected 3,000 buyers.

“It was good timing to come back to New York, although we had difficulty finding enough space,” said Guillaume Deglise, CEO of the Bordeaux-based group,

“New York is the best door to the U.S., is a leader in communications, is more open to imports and has a concentration of big players in the markets.”

In addition to the trade and media-only exhibition, the event will also feature regional tastings by Wine Australia, InterRhone and the Crus Bourgeois du Medoc in addition to master classes and seminars.

“We plan to come back to New York every year. It’s not one of those let’s-go-and-see occasions,” Deglise declared.

“It could possibly be at the same place and same time annually – early March – if we can get additional space.”

Vinexpo will also present the second of its scaled-down regional events, called “Vinexpo Explorer,” from 23 to 25 September in California’s Sonoma County. Vinexpo first exhibited in New York in 2002 and in Chicago in 2003, but neither event was considered to be a success.

“Exhibiting at Vinexpo Bordeaux has always given us very good results, both in terms of gaining brand exposure and building new relationships with the press and trade,” said Alberto Arizu, president of Wines of Argentina.

“Vinexpo returning to New York is a new opportunity for us to keep American trade professionals, distributors and retailers up-to-date with our continually evolving offer and to allow our wines to reach new audiences.”

Another exhibitor, Vivino founder and CEO Heini Zachariassen, said: “We spent years building a truly engaged community of 29 million wine lovers and recently have begun to expand our business model so that the industry can sell to them through the Vivino app and website. We look forward to sharing more about partner and consumer benefits at the show.”

“Champagne Collet has a strong business relationship with Vinexpo,” said commercial director Bertrand Glory.

“We’ve been attending Vinexpo Bordeaux for the last 10 editions and, more recently, we were exhibiting in Vinexpo Tokyo and Vinexpo Hong Kong. We were fast to book our booth for this first edition in New York.”

In advance of the conference, Vinexpo published some compelling industry figures in cooperation with IWSR. Among them is that the U.S. is now the world’s most-valuable wine market, topping off at more than $36 billion in 2017 and expected to grow to more than $45 billion by 2021.

Also using the 2021 benchmark, the U.S. is expected to overtake the U.K. in the top spot for total sparkling wine imports by that year. Finally, Vinexpo says that U.S. consumption of domestically produced whiskey, now at 42.5 million cases, is expected to grow to more than 51 million cases, also in 2021.