Wine Fair Attracts Record Participation
Article by Kostadin Arshinkov, Standart Daily, 14.03.2006
The city of Plovdiv is to become the capital of wine from tomorrow.
This year's edition of the wine exposition "Vinaria 2006" hold in Plovdiv International Fair gathers 517 companies from 34 countries. The forum is the biggest specialized event in the area of vine-growing and wine-producing in Central and Southeastern Europe. Some 200
Bulgarian wine-cellars will expose their best and most famous drinks. Wine-producers and wine-traders as well as wine-cellars, vine-growing and wine-producing complexes and scientific institutes will take part in Vinaria 2006. A lot of foreign companies from the branch will also take part in Vinaria 2006. Italy has the greatest number of companies at the wine forum - 120, followed by France - 49, and Germany - 40.
On the eve of wine exposition Vinaria 2006, Standart asked Yordan Radev, Executive Director of Plovdiv Fair, for his opinion:
- Mr. Radev, the successive wine exposition Vinaria 2006 to be held in the International Plovdiv Fair enjoys the best number of participants ever. What is the difference between this year's edition of the wine forum and the previous such events?
- As to the number of the participants in Vinaria 2006, by the end of last week, 514 companies had enrolled for the wine event as their number was 415 last year. So, one of the differences is the greatest number of participants in this year's edition of Vinaria wine forum.
Another thing, which makes this wine event different from its previous 11 editions, is that the national tasting sessions will be hold under new regulations and mechanism and this happened thanks to the clients, the consumers and the public which demanded that.
- The tasting sessions are over now. Did the wine experts share with you what the quality of the wines at Vinaria 2006 was?
- We have negotiated with the wine experts that noting is released and commented until the very announcement of the results.
- Why is it always the case that the number of foreign companies is substantially bigger than the number of the Bulgarian participants?
- This is absolutely logical. The Bulgarian participants prevail in section "Wine-cellars", while the foreign partakers predominate in section "Machines, equipments and technologies". The Bulgarian companies may have good experience in wine-producing, but they hardly have any good knowledge and patterns in machines and technologies. Due to this, the number of foreign companies is bigger. Yet, this is not an obstacle that Vinaria be a festival of the Bulgarian wine.
- The primary information shows that Italy has the greatest number of participants in Vinaria 2006 as their number is twice as bigger than the French companies. How would you explain this interest in Vinaria 2006 on behalf of the Italian companies?
- This is a follow-up of the good partnership between Bulgaria and Italy regarding wine-producing. A great number of Italian business delegation visited Bulgaria recently. Argentine will participate officially in Vinaria 2006. In my opinion, Bulgaria's forthcoming EU membership plays a significant role for the popularization of Vinaria forum. I read somewhere that Bulgarian and Romanian wines will take a serious place on the EU wine market, because they taste differently and are of excellent quality at the same time. These wines will be the antipode of the wines from South Africa, Chile, Argentina, and
Australia.
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