ITALIAN WINE: EXPORTS INCREASE IN VOLUME, DECREASE IN VALUE. DOMESTIC MARKET STALLED ON QUANTITY AND VALUE. LARGE DISTRIBUTION COUNTS MORE AND MORE AND STATE OF THE ART AT FEDERVINI ASSEMBLY IN ROME. POSITIVE SIGNALS ARE ON THE WAY...

Up in volume, down in value: here’s the result of Italy’s 2009 wine exports in numbers, from the Wine Federation Observatory, Federvini, presented today in Rome for the annual meeting of the Italian Employers Federation, Confindustria. To the export situation, add on the halt both in volume and value on the domestic market. The large supermarket chains are becoming increasingly important and popular and the average price of packaged wine, from the classic bottle to bag in box to Tetrapak, increased. The first positive signals come from exports, the primary outlet for Italian producers.

Made in Italy wines and musts exported 19.203.915 hectoliters in 2009 over 17.508.661 hectoliters in 2008: an increase of 9.7%. The value, instead, in 2009 was 3.469.353.442 euros against 3.603.372.600 euros in 2008, revealing a decrease of 3.7%. About 4.197.745 hectoliters of VQPRD wines (quality wine produced in specified regions) were exported in 2009, against the 4.359.313 in 2008 (less 3.7%), for a value of 1.382.243.230 euros against 1.498.939.238 euros in 2008 (less 7.8%). In 2009 about 11.631.688 hectoliters of table wine were exported against 10.045.620 in 2008: an increase of 15.8% and the value increased by 1.2% on 2008 (1.368.857.754 euros to 1.352.804,285 euros).

In 2009, the main destinations of Italian wine and grapes were, for volume: Germany (6.5 million hl), the United Kingdom (2.7), the United States (2.4), France (1. 28), Switzerland (0.70), Russia (0.66), Canada (0.61), the Czech Republic (0.55), Netherlands (0.41), Austria (0.36), Sweden (0.35), Japan (0.32), Belgium and Denmark (0.30) and Spain, (0.22). In terms of value, Germany was first (798 million), followed by the United States (742), United Kingdom (453), Switzerland (231), Canada (191), Denmark (100), Japan (98), France (90), Netherlands (89), Sweden (83) Austria (71), Russia (66), Belgium (65), Spain and Norway (36). Volume exports to China are still insignificant (79,703 hl in 2009 against 84. 877 in 2008, less 6.1%, while value 19.614.258 euros in 2009 against 15.161.467 million in 2008: an increase of 29.4 %, indicated by many as a kind of new “Eldorado”. And finally, imports of wines and musts to Italy decreased: 1.452.674 hectoliters in 2009, against 1.828.516 hectoliters in 2008 (less 20.6%) and in value 250.389.629 euros in 2009 and 326.244.421 euros in 2008 (23.3%).



Focus - Volume and value fall on domestic markets
Wine sales on the domestic market fell, both in value (less 2.3%) and volume (less 0.6%) reveals the study on the trend of the wine industry in 2009, carried out by AC Nielsen for Federvini. In January 2009, the sales value of the wine industry amounted to 1.637 billion euros, while in January 2010, they dropped to 1.628 billion euros; in January 2009, volume sales were 7.47 million hectoliters, while in January 2010 they decreased to 7.30 million hectoliters. Among the sales channels, hyper and supermarkets take the lion’s share, totaling a share of 65.5% in value and 57.9% in volume; followed by free services (respectively 15.7% and 15.6 %), discount (9.8% and 17.3%) and grocery stores (9% and 9.2%). All channels, without exception, showed a negative trend in wine sales last year. Among the various sizes, the 0.75 liter glass bottle holds the record of preferences, with 37.9% market quota; followed by Tetrapak (33.2%); the 1.5 liter glass bottle (13.7%), other sizes in glass (11.7%) and plastic (3.5%). There was a slight increase last year (1.4%) of the 0.75-liter glass bottle size. Turning to the liquor industry, the Nielsen study estimates that in 2009 the Italian market was 169.9 million liters, while if we also consider liqueurs, sparkling wines and champagne it could reach 252.8 million liters. Compared to 2008, the liquor industry in 2009 decreased by 2.8% in quantity, while the sector liquor + sparkling wines + champagne suffered a decrease of 1,6%. As for consumption, in 2009, 54.5% consumed alcohol outside the home and 45.5% at home.
The division of the different specialties on the vast alcohol sector of the Italian market that includes liqueurs, sparkling wines and champagne, is interesting: sparkling wines are first with 78.8 million liters, followed at a considerable distance by the mixed alcoholic aperitif drinks (20.3 million liters), then bitters, china cordials and Fernet (19.7), grappa (19.1), standard alcoholic aperitif drinks (14.9), rum (13.3), vermouth (11.3), whiskey (10.9) and so on.

In 2009 the specialties that showed a positive performance over 2008 were the standard alcoholic aperitif drinks (+3.4% in volume) and sparkling wines (+1.3%), while all the others fell, with cognac peaking negatively at a minus 13.9%.



Focus - Wine and large-scale distribution, in 2009 value of packaged wine increased

The value of large-scale distribution packaged Italian wine from the classic bottle to bag in box increased. In 2009, 1.406 million euros for 547,9 hectoliters of wine: value up 2.5% and volume down 0.2% over 2008 and an average price of 2.45 euros per pack. The research group, Symphony IRI Group, revealed these data for Federvini. Data from January to April 2010 confirm this trend, with value increasing by 0.2, volume decreasing by 0.3, while the average price stands at 2.40 euros. Large-scale distribution earned 445.7 million euros on the sale of 185.8 million liters of wine.