The next edition of Barcelona Wine Week (BWW), which will break participation records from February 5 to 7, 2024 in palace 8 of the Fira de Barcelona Montjuïc venue, was presented today, Tuesday, at Espacio Larra in Madrid. There will be more than 850 wineries with 70 designations of origin and quality seals. The hall grows by 12%, reaching 7,000 m2. As La Vanguardia has learned, its great success has led the organization, Alimentaria Exhibitions, to study the possibility of increasing the BWW in 2025 with a second pavilion at the Montjuïc fairgrounds. The president of this fair initiative and of the DO Cava, Javier Pagés, explained that “although we continue to grow, our main objective is not the quantity of offer but a clear commitment to the quality and excellence of our exhibitors and visitors at an event. premium.” Pagés also added that the show has been consolidated “with great success.” And Céline Perez, the events director of Alimentaria Exhibitions, has highlighted that the BWW “has managed to build a differential story.”
More than 20,000 professional visitors are expected, 20% international (from 80 countries around the world). Some 650 buyers and importers from strategic countries such as the United States, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, China and the United Kingdom will participate in the show, invited by BWW in collaboration with ICEX. They will be joined by nearly 1,000 national buyers invited to the show through its VIP Buyers program. In total, it is estimated that more than 11,400 business meetings will be held between these buyers and exhibiting companies during the event. In this edition, the central thematic axis will be titled 'Containers for the production and aging of wine: recovering and innovating' and will delve into the trend to use unique, novel or recovered containers, which allow wine to express itself with great freedom and purity. From jars and amphorae to ceramic, cement or granite eggs; barrels and foudres of unique woods; winepresses carved in stone or ancient dry stone vats.
BWW 2024 will have major exhibiting brands such as Araex, Protos, Matarromera, Pago de los Capellanes, Juvé
In this fourth edition there will be more than 50 presentations and professional tastings. The tasting on alternative aging and winemaking beyond the wood stands out, with producers such as Fernando Mora (Master of Wine and founder of the Aragonese Bodegas Frontonio), Dominik A. Hüber (from the Terroir al Límit winery, from the Qualified DO Priorat) ), Sara Pérez (with wineries in Montsant and Priorat) and Javier Revert (Valle dels Alforins). Or the round table in which Almudena Alberca (Master of Wine and oenologist), Pilar Cavero (sommelier and wine critic at ABC) and Carlota Pena (oenologist and expert in biodynamics) will participate to analyze the most unique aging containers. BWW 2024 will also bring together the winners of the Best Sommelier in Spain competition in 2019, 2021 and 2022 (Diego González, Gabriel Lucas and Álex Pardo) to expose macro trends in wine making. And the winemakers Raül Bobet, Alfredo Maestro and Miquel Palau will explain how they make wine in winepresses from the 12th to the 19th centuries.
The diversity of materials and containers and their influence on wine will be evident in the Wine Tasting Journey space, which will offer a self-guided tasting with 70 wines aged in unique containers. Other notable presentations will be those by Peter Richards, Master of Wine and one of the most renowned wine communicators in the United Kingdom; Beth Willard of Decanter magazine; the Catalan sommelier Ferran Centelles (El Bulli Foundation) or the Canadian François Chartier, chosen as the best sommelier in the world and considered the great reference in the creation of molecular harmonies between wines and dishes. And there will be no shortage of very exclusive tastings such as 'The 10 Magnificent DO Ribera del Duero', which is announced as the most prestigious tasting held to date in Catalonia by renowned wineries from a DO founded in 1982.
For its part, the BWW Hub space will host various conferences and round tables on sustainability, internationalization and digitalization of wineries. Highlights include sessions such as the one that will analyze the application of Artificial Intelligence in the sector or the one that will focus on exports to the United States, with the participation of ICEX Spain Export and Investment. In the field of sustainability, techniques for reducing the carbon footprint will be analyzed, and wineries such as Masaveu, Arizcuren or Mar de Frades will present their actions to adapt to climate change. Other sessions will analyze the new wine labeling rules or trends regarding the consumption of non-alcoholic wine, through a round table that will feature the Matarromera, Familia Torres and Juan Gil wineries.
Barcelona Wine Week will also be celebrated throughout the city. During the event, and within the framework of the Barcelona Likes the City program, the Hotel Wine Tour will pair different denominations of origin with 5-star hotels that will offer tastings, pairings and other proposals to publicize the wines from their wineries.
