Buyers Club Information

The WH Buyers Club builds qualified business relationships between the Festival's selected companies and professional buyers from Italy and abroad, active in wine, food, hospitality, retail and distribution.

What counts is not the number of contacts but their quality: targeted B2B meetings, consistent with the Festival's premium positioning, and relationships that continue before and after the days in Merano, also through the international network of WineHunter Ambassadors.

A professional buyer is anyone who actually purchases, selects, imports, distributes or markets wine, beverages or gourmet products. Eligible categories:

• importers and distributors;
• wholesalers, retail groups and specialised chains;
• wine shops with significant trading activity;
• Ho.Re.Ca. buyers, purchasing managers of hotel groups and beverage managers of restaurant groups;
• specialised e-commerce;
• monopolies and purchasing bodies;
• duty free and travel retail;
• strategically relevant B2B operators.

Sommeliers, consultants, journalists and communicators do not automatically qualify as buyers unless they also carry out a documented purchasing or commercial intermediation activity.

Registration is an application. The Buyer Office reviews your profile – company, headquarters and country, role and purchasing responsibility, distribution channels, product categories and import countries, price range and indicative volumes, interests at the Festival (regions, appellations, grape varieties, organic, natural, sparkling, spirits, gourmet) – and may check the website, LinkedIn, references and role, or ask for a short video call.

Incomplete or unverifiable information may prevent recognition of buyer status. The final decision rests with the Merano WineFestival management: on approval you receive the e-mail to activate your access.

• Hosted International Invite: a selected buyer to whom the Festival, ICE or an institutional partner grants a form of hospitality.
• Ambassador Invite: a buyer officially invited by the Festival, an Ambassador or a partner.
• WH Buyers Club Member: subscribed to the annual WH Buyers Club Membership.
• WH Buyers Club Platinum Member: operators of particular relevance or high volume, with tailored conditions.

Hospitality is not an automatic right: it depends on the quality of the profile, the requests for the target market, the budget committed to the event, the number of B2B meetings and strategic priorities. Possible levels:

• Full Hosted: flight, hotel, transfer, Festival Pass, WH Buyers Club Membership, B2B meetings organised during the event.
• Partial Hosted: hotel, local transfers, Festival Pass, WH Buyers Club Membership, B2B meetings organised during the event.
• Buyer Access: B2B meetings organised during the event.

Your B2B manager will be available for contact after sign-up.

Appointments come from commercial compatibility – country, channels, product type, appellations, positioning, price, declared interests – not from the order in which requests arrive. A meeting can be requested by you, by a company, by the Buyer Office or by an Ambassador: a request is not a confirmation; the Buyer Office builds the agenda.

Each meeting lasts about 20–30 minutes, with time for changing tables, tasting and notes. Your agenda is in this area and, on request, on paper.

The working language is English; many companies also speak Italian or German. If you need an interpreter, tell the Buyer Office in advance.

At the meeting the company brings the material – price list, technical sheets, tasting samples – while all you need is a business card or a digital contact card and a clear idea of what you are looking for: regions, appellations, price range, volumes.

Respect times and agenda: arrive a few minutes early and tell the Buyer Office at once if you cannot attend. An appointment missed without reason is recorded as a no show; repeated no shows lead to reduced benefits, exclusion from reserved activities, loss of Hosted status and, in serious cases, exclusion from future editions.

Improper requests for samples or gifts, abuse of hospitality, transfer of the accreditation and improper use of company information are not allowed.

Contacts are exchanged with the consent of both parties, by business card or QR code. No photos, audio or video without explicit consent.

The data collected through the Buyers Club is part of the Merano WineFestival's professional system and is used only for authorised professional purposes, in compliance with data protection law.

For delays, unforeseen events or changes of plan write immediately to frontoffice@meranowinefestival.com: the Buyer Office updates the agenda and informs the other party.

• SELECT – select genuinely qualified operators.
• MATCH – connect buyers and companies on concrete interests.
• CONNECT – create professional relationships of quality.
• DEVELOP – turn the Festival's meetings into lasting business opportunities.

The Merano WineFestival does not simply want to host buyers: it wants to create qualified business between outstanding producers and international markets.