In the first seven months of 2026, EU agri-food trade monitoring data showed a 10% increase in exports of spirits and liqueurs compared with the same period in 2025. At the same time, wine remained in negative territory and overall European agri-food exports were weaker. The picture does not point to a dramatic market shift, […]
One word keeps appearing in the language of contemporary whisky: provenance. It does not refer only to the place printed on the label, but to the way a product is assembled piece by piece. The barley comes from a specific field, the casks from a controlled supply chain, the water from a spring or a […]
There is a question becoming increasingly relevant in the beverage world: how do you occupy alcohol’s social space without alcohol? The answer does not seem to lie in a single format, but in a set of strategies that some brands are testing to enter the same occasions with a different identity. One of the clearest […]
Wine has not stopped attracting interest. In many cases, though, it has lost some of its immediacy: it does not always speak in a language that makes people want to taste it rather than keep their distance. That is an important distinction, because the issue is not only the product itself, but the way it […]
There is a point when a beverage category stops growing mainly through curiosity and starts relying on something else. For spirits-based ready-to-drink products, that moment now seems close. Over the past five years, the segment has attracted many first-time buyers, helped by a broader range of flavours, different base spirits and formats designed for a […]
Some drinks stop being just drinks when they begin to work as signals. An object to give as a gift, to collect, to take to the stadium or to connect with a charitable gesture can say more than the liquid inside it. In three recent cases, very different in market and audience, the non-alcoholic beverage […]
There is a thread running through some of the most interesting things happening in Italian wine right now. It is not only about volumes or rankings, but about the way a denomination tries to speak more clearly about its territory, and about the way wine is perceived by the people who visit it or choose […]
In Italian wine, one of the clearest responses to climate change is playing out uphill. Not as a single national strategy, but through a handful of emblematic cases where altitude, water management and appellation rules are being reconsidered together. The result is less a uniform shift than a series of local adjustments that say a […]
There comes a point when a category stops being defined only by what it lacks and starts to speak for itself. In the non-alcoholic beverage world, that shift does not apply to the whole sector at once, but a few recent cases suggest where some segments may be heading. The most familiar example is bottled […]
Outside their countries of origin, tea is taking different paths. On one side is matcha served in cafés, with its set of gestures, tools and cultural expectations. On the other are some large Chinese tea drink chains, which are betting on rapid expansion, local adaptation and formats designed for everyday consumption. The comparison does not […]