ITALIAN WINE EXPORTS GROW (+6.3%). U.S. IS THE MAIN CLIENT, BUT STRONG GROWTH ALSO IN JAPAN. COLDIRETTI: FIRST PLACE RANKING OF BRUNELLO DI MONTALCINO IS CONFIRMATION OF THE STRENGTH OF “MADE IN ITALY” QUALITY GOODS

Italian wine exports have registered a record-breaking growth of 6.3%, with excellent results in the U.S. (+5.9%), making it the top export market for Italian products, and with significant results for Japan as well, which registered the highest growth rate (+10.7%) in absolute. This information was recently released by Coldiretti, based on ISTAT data relative to foreign commerce in the first months of 2006, demonstrating promising evidence of the possibility that, by the end of the year, the total value of exported wine will surpass 3 billion euros, making it the largest earning part of all food and agricultural products sent abroad.
These are earnings that surpass those of Italian pasta, oil, cheese, prosciutto, and fruit exports for over half of the European Union, with a general growth of 2.6%, though with a slight stagnation in Germany (-3.9%), the country that buys a quarter of all Italian exports. Coldiretti also noted, however, that there were surprisingly positive results in France, where Italian wine consumption grew (+1.9%). Asian markets are growing exponentially, with Japan taking the lion’s share with its growth in acquisitions of 10.7%, and where total earnings could reach an impressive sum of 100 million euros by the end of the year.
This year’s first place ranking of the Italian wine, Brunello di Montalcino (Tenuta Nuova 2001, produced by Casanova di Neri di Giacomo Neri), on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 classification is not coincidental, but further proof that the “Made in Italy” wine sector is at the commercial vanguard.
Coldiretti concluded that this is also further evidence of new and significant opportunities for growth in this sector that will also benefit from a 2006 grape harvest that is expected to produce 50 million hectoliters of wine and musts (production levels equivalent to the previous year), with excellent prospectives quality-wise, and of which 60% will be produced under one of the 453 denominations of origin (DOCG, DOC, and IGT).
In 2005, Italian wine earned a total 9 billion euros, of which, one third was sold on foreign markets.