2020: optimism prevails among Italian producers, who say “growth” in exports and “home”

Maybe one of the peculiarities of wine is to give joy to the soul, the fact is that despite a 2019 of weak growth, +2.9% over 2018 (for 6.3 billion euros) and a world scenario as never before complicated, producers, who now live in the global market, look with confidence to 2020, going beyond the uncertainties about duties, Brexit and the slowdown of leading economies such as those of Germany or China. This was confirmed by a stakeholder survey carried out by the Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor a wine2wine Observatory, the Vinitaly training, and networking event. According to the Observatory’s data, the 13 top companies interviewed (1.7 billion euros in total turnover and 1 billion euros in exports, which is equivalent to a share of 16% of the national total) consider the coming year to be substantially positive. Exports will record a “limited increase” (from +2% to +5%) for the majority of the sample (54%), while identical shares (23%) are reserved for “significant increases” and the “stable” market. No pessimist, therefore, even on the domestic market, which is equally divided (38%) between “significant increase” and “stable” in a general framework perhaps conditioned by the excellent performance expected for their companies, where the growth prevails “significant” (62%) on those “contained”.
Among the buyer countries with the highest confidence index, stand out - together with the United States (87 out of 100 the confidence index) - the two protagonists of the partnership agreements, Canada (90/100) and Japan (87/100), whose growth is already evident this year. And if even for the pursuers Russia, China, and Switzerland, the bar of growth exceeds 50% of the confidence, no decline is then expected in 2 areas of emerging demand (Mexico and Poland) and a historical market (Germany), in Brazil, France and Sweden prevails a forecast of unchanged market. Finally, at the bottom of the league, the United Kingdom, the only one with a declining prevalence of imports. According to Denis Pantini, head of the Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor Observatory, “in a global scenario dominated by uncertainty, Italian companies are maintaining an optimistic outlook, especially in those markets where uncertainty is lower, thanks also to free trade agreements, as well as a newfound national market that seems to have reached its equilibrium after decades of continuous decline, especially in terms of quantity consumption”.