Wine districts, 7 out of 10 growing in the first part of the year. Intesa San Paolo data

If overall, the first 5 months 2020 of wine exports turned negative (-4% on 2019), the first 6 months 2020 had started well for Italian wine as a whole, and especially for some of its districts. From which it will be essential to start again to grow, just after the pandemic. To tell it a close examination of the “Monitor of agri-food districts” of Intesa San Paolo. According to which 7 wine districts out of 10 among those that are part of the panel identified by the Study Center of the bank, had started clearly in positive. Starting from that of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato Wines (the most important one in absolute value among the wine & food districts of Italy, with export of 1.7 billion euros in 2019, 7.9% of the total export of agri-food districts, editor’s note), although at a slower rate (+5.2% trend) on the double-digit growth of 2019 (+12.5%). The district of Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera and more, totals 406 million exports in the quarter, and grows to all major destinations, primarily the United States (+12%) and Germany (+7%), while it continues to lose flows to the United Kingdom, with a decline of over 18% after the already negative closure of 2019 (-5%).
Veronese Wines are also appreciated, with Valpolicella, Soave and others that have moved almost 250 million euros of exports, a +4.4% in the first quarter of 2020 (+5.9% the result of 2019), achieved mainly in Germany (+18.5%), while sales in the United States (-9.1%) and the United Kingdom (-9.3%) are falling.
Prosecco di Conegliano-Valdobbiadene, according to Intesa San Paolo, had also resumed its run (+6.3%) after the almost unchanged closure of 2019 (-0.5%), stopping just under 175 million euros in the period January-March 2020: losses to the United Kingdom (-20% in the quarter) are more than compensated towards the United States (+7.7%) and Germany (+20.5%).
Excellent results, with 187 million in total, for the Wines of the Florentine and Sienese hills, which between Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti Classico, Nobile di Montepulciano and Chianti, Vernaccia di San Gimignano and more, register a +13.1% trend, and it is the district to which the greatest contribution to the growth of the supply chain is owed, with 21.6 million more exports compared to the first quarter of 2019, of which 16.1 million to the United States, the first commercial outlet for exports of the district with over 40% of the total. Double-digit growth, albeit on much smaller amounts, is also seen in Bolzano wines and distillates (+12.5%) with about 52 million exports in total, and Friuli wines and distillates (+10.7%) with almost 34 million in the quarter, both in the wake of last year’s positive results.
The district of Wines and Spirits of Western Sicily achieves a real boom in sales (+34.2%), closing with almost 40 million and recovering in this way the regression of 2019 (-3.2%), especially towards France, which in the first quarter of 2020 achieves almost three times what was exported in the whole of 2019. The region, through the Consortium for the protection of its DOC wines, emphasizes Intesa San Paolo, is investing a lot (and with appreciable results) in advertising and public relations campaigns aimed at promoting a better knowledge of Sicily and the quality of its wines abroad, initiatives now remodeled in a “social” perspective in the form of “web tastings” to adapt to new consumer needs. Among the districts that record a negative result, the Wines and Spirits of Trento (-2.1% trend) with 91.4 million, the Wines of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (-2.4%) which stops at 42.6 million, and the Wines and Spirits of Brescia (-9.1%) with just under 30 million.