Wine exports increasingly on an inclined plane, domestic market in slight but not enough improvement: this is the summary of the analysis of the Uiv-Ismea Observatory, which processed new Istat data on wine exportsin the first four months and sales in the large-scale retail sector in Italy in the first half of the year, based on the ISMEA-Nielsen-IQ Consumption Observatory.
Wine Exports 2023: The First Six Months in Review
In the first four months of the year, the performance of Italian wine in the world marked a trend decline of 0.7% in volumes and +2% in values (exports attested at 2.36 billion euros). On the other hand, the six-month period in the Italian large-scale retail sector closed with a contraction of 3.9% on the volume front accompanied by +3.5% in values (to €1.38 billion). Both performances – ISMEA and Unione italiana vini (Uiv) note – highlight the difficulties of a 2023 in which the surplus of production costs has affected on average 10 % of the finished product against much lower sales price increases, both in foreign and domestic markets.
In addition, the Observatory notes a downward trend-mirroring the economic situation-of products sold, both on the foreign and Italian markets. Net of bulk wine sales-sold at low prices anyway-the response on volumes marketed across borders would in fact be much more negative, -3.5 %, with bottled wines at -4.2% and PDOs, in particular, at -6.9%.
Among the shelves of Italian large-scale retail, although there are signs of improvement, such as the partial recovery of PDOs which, however, does not allow the negative trend to be reversed, the downward movement is confirmed, for example, in the trends of sparkling wines, where the race of low-cost sparkling wines (+8.6% volume) continues, setting the price at 4.6 euros/liter, almost 40% less than the average for Prosecco. For the world’s best-selling sparkling wine from the Northeast, which has raised its prices consistently with the growth in raw material costs, the six-month period closes with a -5.8% in volume terms in particular due to the effect of the abrupt stop of the DOCG.