I don't think I've ever met an Italian wine I did not enjoy drinking, and yet, it is so rare to find them. We get a few smatterings from one of our international wine clubs, and now and then, we score a bottle at a local shop. However, it is not nearly as easy as finding a vintage from California or France. According to Italian winemaker Luigi Mancini, one reason why Italian wine can be so scarce when you aren't in Italy is because their marketing efforts aren't as well-organized as they should be:

Mancini, who exports about half of what he produces from his vineyard near Pesaro on the Adriatic coast, blamed the confusion over his wine on the haphazard way in which his country promoted its wines overseas. "We could all sell more," he said.

Giorgio Serra, who recently became responsible for wine at the Buonitalia state marketing agency, said the problem lay with the disorderly way in which Italy's regions tried to get more people to drink their Barolos, Brunellos and Barbarescos.

"What we need to do is set up a national plan," he said: the regions rarely coordinate their promotional campaigns. "We will lose out to the competition (if we don't)."

Serra's resolve to clean up the marketing mess strengthened during a recent trip to Japan where he found French wine dominating restaurant menus.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a Japanese who knows about Campania wine," he said

One area where the regions were in need of help was in organising wine tastings, said Lucio Caputo, a promoter of Italian wine in New York.

"In some cases, they (regions) bring a company that has no representation in this country," he said. "Even if someone is interested, they can't buy the wine because it isn't available."

(image link)