Italian restaurants in the medium to high levels are increasingly opting for the wines of Southern Italy, and Sicily in particular, according to a report by the Italian news agency, AGI, quoting a survey report released at Vinitaly in Verona .

The restaurants buy the wine directly from producers (80.5%) and look for new wine producers in sector fairs (87.2% of these have been in Vinitaly). Restaurant clientele, meanwhile, are now entitled to new services such as "cork rights" and "doggy bags". These facts are included in the survey 'Wine in Quality Restaurants' carried out by Veronafiere, the organiser of Vinitaly, and Confcommercio at a press conference attended by Davide Paolini, well-known 'gastronaut'; Giovanni Bort, Administrator of Confcommercio; and Maurizio Ceci from Buonitalia Spa. This is the first survey of restaurants as wine outlets, because these are the places where many consumers discover and learn to appreciate quality wines.

The survey covered 1,000 restaurants with high ratings in gastronomy guides and an important point highlighted by it is that the wines of Southern Italy, of Sicily especially, are going to dominate the lists of the near future. Italians can be very patriotic about their wines: a mere 12.9% of the respondents had a soft spot for international wines.