The first World Wine Symposium dubbed as the “Davos of Wine” was held in luxurious Villa d’Este in Italy end of October 2009. The idea of organising one of the industry key events comes from Francois Mauss, president of the Grand Jury Europeen. His initiative was supported by the owners of five top ranking wine estates whom Mauss now calls the symposium’s godfathers. They are Alain Vauthier (Chateau Ausone), Angelo Gaja (Gaja), Egon Muller (Weingut Egon Muller), Aubert de Villaine (Domaine de la Romanee-Conti) and Pablo Alvarez (Vega Sicilia).
Besides there were around 250 wine professionals that came to the event from as far as Singapore, USA, Canada, India, etc. Not only winemakers were there, but also wine investment fund managers, physicists, a representative of the French Ministry of Agriculture and even an opera singe, with important wine personalities such as Joel Payne, Michel Bettane, Olivier Humbrecht , Elin McCoy, Stephane Derenoncourt.
