“Cantina Italia”: November 2019, wine stocks total 39 million hectoliters (24% Veneto)

While this year’s wine harvest is virtually finished just about everywhere, the wine stocks in Italian wineries amount to 39 million hectoliters, to which 12 million hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation and 18 million hectoliters of must will have to be added. Fifty-one percent of wine stocks is PDO, which is prevalently red (over 55%), 25.5% is PGI, and also here it is prevalently red (57%), while instead, varietal wines are just 1.7% of the total. The remaining 22.1% is table wines, whilst organic wines account for 5.6% of the total. These are the data coming from the most recent “Cantina Italia” bulletin of the ICQRF, on data from the Telematic Registry, updated to November 1, 2019, which definitely confirms the trend of an increase in stocks, compared to the October figures.

The Veneto Region confirms its leading position, totaling 9.48 million hectoliters; that is, 24% of Italian wine stocks, of which 5.6 million hectoliters PDO, 2.3 million hectoliters PGI and 1.3 million hectoliters table wines. The Emilia Romagna Region follows with a total of 4.7 million hectoliters of stocks (0.9 million hectoliters PDO, 1.3 million hectoliters PGI and 2.4 million hectoliters table wines). Tuscany has a total of 4.3 million hectoliters (2.7 million hectoliters PDO, 1.1 million hectoliter (PGI and 0.3 million hectoliters table wines), then Apulia at 3.7 million hectoliters (0.7 million hectoliters PDO, 1.6 million hectoliters PGI and 1.3 million hectoliters table wines), Piedmont, totals 3.6 million hectoliters (2.5 million hectoliters PDO, 0.2 million hectoliters PGI and 0.8 million hectoliters table wines) and finally Sicily, at 2.7 million hectoliters of stocks (1.1 million hectoliters PDO, 1 million hectoliters PGI and 0.5 million hectoliters table wines).

Even though there is a large number of Designations of Origin (524), actually 10 of them alone represent 39% of the total denomination wines in Italian wineries, and the top 20 denominations represent more than half of the total (57%). Considering PDOs, Prosecco alone takes the lead at 7.1% of the total PDO and PGI of the Italian winery, and 2.1 million hectoliters, while the PGI Terre Siciliane and Veneto together have, respectively, 1.15 and 1.11 million hectoliters of stocks, which is equal to 3.8% and 3.7% of the total (amounting to 30 million hectoliters), exactly the same as the PDO Delle Venezie, the PGI Toscana and the PDO Sicilia. As far as the remaining Denominations are concerned, the stocks of Chianti amount to just under one million hectoliters, those of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, 0.96 million hectoliters, and those of Chianti Classico, 0.67 million hectoliters, while Prosecco Superiore di Conegliano Valdobbiadene is at 0.62 million hectoliters, Franciacorta has 0.5 million hectoliters of stocks, Valpolicella Ripasso has 0.48 million hectoliters of stocks, Barolo has 0.47 million hectoliters and Amarone della Valpolicella has 0.44 million hectoliters of stocks.