The Big Takeaways from ProWein 2025

Each year in March, the wine world turns its eyes to Düsseldorf, where ProWein plays host to a truly international array of wines and spirits. For over three decades, the international wine and spirits trade fair has been a major global destination for industry insiders to gather, connect and build for the future. 

This year, in a volatile international marketplace shaken by talk of tariffs, trade wars, neo-prohibitionism, health concerns and slowing growth, pros came together as always to find opportunities and new partners. 

Raphaël Knapp, a former importer who is now the owner and winemaker of Château la Borie in the Rhône Valley, was bullish on the results of the fair. “I had the chance to connect with industry professionals from Northern Europe as well as the Americas and Asia,” he says.

But it’s not just the folks from European wineries who see the value of the trip. Industry pros from the Southern Hemisphere, Asia and the Americas also populated the various halls, looking to connect with Europe and beyond. 

This year marked my first visit to ProWein for Wine Enthusiast, so here are my top takeaways from the three-day event. 

It Is Massive

It may seem obvious to those who have visited over the years, but the scale of the thing is really something to admire—way more gigantic than even the most experienced industry vets might imagine.

This year, ProWein connected 4,200 exhibitors from 65 countries with 42,000 trade attendees from all over the world.

To accommodate this many vendors and viewers, the space is remarkably sprawling.

Let me put the scale in context: just beyond the edge of the ProWein facilities is the Merkur Spiel-Arena, a retractable-roofed professional soccer stadium that hosts the Bundesliga team Fortuna Düsseldorf. 

The massive arena that seats 55,000 people is barely the size of the two Germany halls (numbers one and five) at ProWein. All together, there were eleven active halls at ProWein Düsseldorf this year. Eleven. 

Each individual hall is truly dizzying in scope, with even the smaller spaces holding hundreds upon hundreds of vendor booths of various sizes, from spacious but manageable, to around the size of my first 650-square-foot San Francisco studio apartment (back when you didn’t need a giant tech salary to afford rent). Many of them also have considerably nicer furniture and larger wall mounted televisions than many people have in their homes. Bear in mind that the walls in question did not exist the week before and are assembled on site in four days or so as the fair erupts to life.

As you walk the halls, row by row, library-style signage hangs overhead, noting your location within the grid. While it’s possible to just wander and taste, it’s best to have some sort of plan as you attempt to connect. To make it easier for exhibitors and trade visitors this year, ProWein launched Fair Match, a system to help organize appointments, allowing seamless scheduling and even more new connections.