The "Godfather" of all wine shows began last Thursday in Verona, Italy, and wraps up later today.

Vinitaly, the largest Wine conference and trade show in the world, featuring 4,200 exhibitors from 32 countries opened its doors yesterday to receive and estimated 144,000 attendees from over one hundred countries.

Now celebrating its 41st event, Vinitaly continues to be the major showcase for Italian wines with a spattering of other varietals from wine regions around the world. The 11 + buildings housing well over 50,000 wines also include everything imaginable in marketing and product lines to enhance it.

Looking for a balance between old and new, the exhibition offers a variety of events and seminars that include both tradition and historic topics such as "The Wines That Changed Italy - 20 years of Gambero Rosso," and innovations seminars that include "Trendy Today, Big Tomorrow" and "Sicily and Wine" that will give insight on regional and style goals for the future.

Although Italian tradition was very evident in talking with various winemakers and representatives of the regional vineyards keeping up with modern technology is also in the fore front. "Modernation is not just in the winery," said winemaker and Chianti Classico representative Daniele Rosellini, " It's also in the vineyards here but it's very talked about. There was a 15 year study conducted that was completed in 2004. A major result of that study was us re-evaluating our clone selections and making changes to grow smaller berried fruit with more character."

Kieth Rutz and Duane Rose of Rutz Cellars pour their wines during Vinitaly exhibition.

There are wine producers outside Italy that look at the exhibition as way of expanding their markets. In a far corner of the show were a handful of California wine producers including Ironstone, Trinchero, and Andretti. " Our goal is to get connected with the European market," commented Keith Rutz, of Rutz Cellars in Sebastopol, California. " Europe was once 20 percent of my business. We aren't here thinking we are going to take Italy by storm. But for instance, we had someone from Sweden stop earlier today that is very interested in our wines. Markets like that and German are very appealing. Especially with the Euro being so strong. We're hoping that Europe will be 5-10 percent of our sales next year."

The Vinitaly conference runs through April 2.