ALL TIME RECORD FOR EXPORTS - OVER 4 BILLION EUROS (+13%)… REVEALS COLDIRETTI ANALYSIS (ON ISTAT DATA). ASIAN COUNTRIES ARE THE BIG SURPRISE – CHINA +80%, RUSSIA AND THE US +16%

All time record for exports of Italian wine in the world that topped, for the first time, the 4 billion euros record. Up 13% compared to 2010, as revealed by the Italian farmers’ association, Coldiretti analysis based on the Italian Statistics Agency study on foreign trade in the first 11 months of 2011. Wine is the number one item for Italian agro-food exports and more than half the revenue comes from European markets - says Coldiretti – Germany (+10%) leads the countries that appreciate Made in Italy wine, followed by Great Britain (+10%). However, Coldiretti says about 25% came from the United States that registered a record increase of 16% in 2011. The real surprise, continues Coldiretti, comes from the Asian Countries, starting with China where wine exports practically doubled (+80%), while Russia continues to grow (+ 16%).

The result on foreign markets bodes well for the 2011 vintage, which - says Coldiretti - resulted in good quality levels but an all time low in production with a 14% record drop, for an estimated production of around 40 million hectoliters. Over 60% of production is devoted to one of the 517 recognized DOCG, DOC and TGI wines in Italy.
As a result of the harvest slump - concludes Coldiretti - Italy lost its world lead in quantity production in favor of France, which jumped to more than 50.2 million hectoliters (up 11% on 2010), but is still ahead of Spain, where the decline was contained to 2% for a total of 39.9 million hectoliters.