2023 harvest, the North did well in quantity, the Center and the South did poorly, with drops between -20% and -40%

The estimated drop in production for the 2023 Italian harvest is -12% compared to 2022, for 44 million hectoliters, is not dramatic. But if the North holds up, with -2% in Piedmont, for example, and even grows, with +5% in Veneto and +15% in Lombardy, for example, from the Center to the South the data are decidedly worse: it ranges from -4.5% in Emilia Romagna to -20% in Tuscany and Lazio, from -25% in Marche to -30% in Sicily and Puglia, to -40% in Abruzzo, with a situation that places great difficulties especially for winemakers: this is the summary picture that emerges from the estimates of the Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv), Ismea and Assoenologi, presented today in Rome. A harvest, then, that is a kind of “two-faced Janus”, set in a scenario that can change dramatically, given that the bulk of the harvest, according to the technicians, will be between September and October. In any case, Peronospora, the unwelcome protagonist of this 2023, especially in the Center and the South, has undermined, along with the strong heat, the harvest in quantity. The quality does not appear to have been affected for now, at least according to the data on the sparkling wine bases and on the earliest varieties already in the cellar.