BolognaFiere buys into Gambero Rosso for €5.7m

BolognaFiere has bought a 49.9% stake in Gambero Rosso, paying €5.7m for a share of Italy's best-known wine and food guide as the Bologna exhibition group expands into publishing. The deal, announced on 13 September, creates a new holding company, Gambero Rosso Holding, that now owns the guide's editorial and events operations.

Class Editori, the media group that has controlled Gambero Rosso outright since founding it, contributed 51.17% of the company's shares to the new holding and kept a direct 10% stake alongside its 50.1% of the holding itself. BolognaFiere's €5.693m buys the remaining 49.9%.

Gambero Rosso's new shareholder

A wine guide is worth more as a business partner now than as a headline.

BolognaFiere runs national and international trade fairs from its base in Emilia-Romagna, the region built on Parma ham, Modena vinegar and Sangiovese. Gambero Rosso, by contrast, makes its money from ratings, courses and consulting: its Tre Bicchieri wine awards and restaurant guides carry enough weight in Italy that a Gambero Rosso score can move a bottle's price on the shelf. The guide's 2025 revenue is expected to reach roughly €15m.

Gianpiero Calzolari, BolognaFiere's president, said the investment would strengthen “the international presence of Italy’s food and wine excellence,” pairing his group's fair-organising reach with Gambero Rosso's publishing arm. Paolo Panerai, Class Editori's vice-president and chief executive, framed the deal as a way to combine event expertise with editorial output.

Both companies were explicit on one point: the transaction does not touch editorial independence or the criteria behind Gambero Rosso's quality certifications. Tre Bicchieri judging panels, they said, keep their current structure and sign-off process.

Why the guide needed cash

Gambero Rosso already runs a US arm, licensing deals abroad and a growing calendar of tastings, but scaling those events takes fair-organising infrastructure that a 39-year-old publishing house was never built for. BolognaFiere gets, in return, a stake in one of the few Italian food and wine brands with real export value beyond trade circles.

The transaction adds to a run of consolidation in Italy's guide business, where publishers increasingly pair with events groups or hospitality investors to fund growth beyond print and subscriptions. Gianluca Gorini's new book and BITE 2026's chef gala this year both drew on the same Emilia-Romagna food economy that BolognaFiere now has a stake in twice over.

Gambero Rosso's next Tre Bicchieri awards, expected this autumn, will be the first test of whether readers notice the change in ownership at all.