STOCKS: THE FINAL NUMBERS. THERE ARE 53 MILLION HECTOLITERS OF WINES AND MUSTS IN ITALIAN WINE CELLARS (AS OF DECEMBER 11TH), THE DECREASE WILL BE 8.7 MILLION HECTOLITERS FOR 2018 AND THE UPWARD TREND ON WINE PRICES WILL CONTINUE

Wine stocks is still a hot issue, but the argument on numbers, especially the most anticipated ones, i.e., those reflecting the current state of the art of Italian winery, has taken an accurate photograph of the state of things at the end of the year. There is some confusion because according to the Community legislation, stocks means all the wines and musts held in the cellars on July 31st. Therefore, the figure of 46.8 million hectoliters that the UIV - Unione Italiana Vini communicated last week is not wrong, but it lacks a clarification; that is, 14.3 million hectoliters of the total amount communicated were already ready to trade (“at trade”, in the European Commission definition). Therefore, the real number of stocks falls to 32.4 million hectoliters.
That’s not everything though, because as the Italian Wine Union clarified in the latest issue of "Corriere Vinicolo", stocks updated to December 11th, according to the electronic register, between wines and musts, were 53 million certified hectoliters of new fermented, bulk, bottled and bottled but not yet labeled wine. This, in a nutshell, is what the companies have in their cellars. One arrives at this figure simply by subtracting from the stocks on July 31st the sales in Italy (10 million hectoliters) and abroad (9.5 million hectoliters) in the August-December period, then adding imported wine (1.5 million hectoliters) and wine produced (38.7 million hectoliters, even less than estimates). Projecting the needs of the market to the current situation, it is possible to estimate a demand in the period January-July 2018 for 29.4 million hectoliters, which means having 23.7 million hectoliters in the cellars as of 31st July 2018 - 8.7 million hectoliters less than the last financial year. This is the reason why, even though there is no need to be alarmed, in the hope of an abundant 2018 harvest, the upward trend on wine prices will continue.