Bulk wine: in the first 8 months of 2020, shipments down by 13% in volume, values held up (-4.5%)

Italy, which is facing the Covoid-19 pandemic, which hit the country first, and stronger than the others, in the first 8 months of 2020 exported 33 million liters less over the same period of 2019. An all in all contained drop, of 2.4%, mainly related to the collapse of bulk: -13%, equal to 38.7 million liters less, as shown by the data released by the World Bulk Wine Exhibition in Amsterdam, in an edition that will close its (virtual) doors tomorrow. Bottled still wines are also down, at -1% (-7.5 million liters), while sparkling wines continue to grow, with +2.2% in the period (+5.3 million liters), with the bag-in-box category, which for some years now has its own code, growing by 27% (+7.8 million liters).
The good news, for bulk, is that it is the only category that sees the average price increase. Of the 129 million euros lost by Italy (-3.2%), only 8.8 million euros are attributable to bulk wine (-4.5%). In terms of turnover, the categories that have marked the biggest drop were sparkling wines (-71 million euros) and bottled wines (-61 million euros), while bag-in-box wine generated almost 12 million euros more (+ 19%). On a monthly basis, from January 2019 to January 2020, the total volume of bulk wine exported from Italy grew at a very good pace, but the arrival of the epidemic marked the decline in February, which nevertheless led to a rebound in March (+ 22.5%), while between April and August the decline was substantial.
Of the entire bulk exported from Italy, 63% goes to Germany, which is worth almost 50% of the total value in the first 8 months of the year: 1.62 million hectoliters (-4%) for 88.8 million euro (+6.8%), at an average price that increased by 11%, going from 49 cents per liter to 55 cents per liter. To grow significantly are instead Norway (+85%) and Sweden (+15%), which have significantly increased the spending for Italian bulk wine, reaching respectively 6.2 and 10.9 million euros. Switzerland remains in second place, despite a drop of 15.5%, at 17.3 million euros. The United States (+21%, to 7.1 million euros) and Canada (+7%, to 3.3 million euros) are also doing well. Among the top 20 leading markets, these four countries were the only ones, together with Germany, to grow also in terms of value.
On the negative side there is France, the producer country, which has stopped importing bulk wine from Italy (-40%), although it remains the second destination in terms of volume, while it falls by 33% in terms of value (10.4 million euros). Sales in Austria, Lithuania, Greece, Spain and China, as well as in Hungary and Russia, countries that are coming out of the “top 202 of the main destinations, dropped by 99% and 82% respectively. Negative data also in the United Kingdom (-17.3%, at 6.8 million euros), the Czech Republic and Denmark. Over the 12 months, from September 2019 to August 2020, Italy exported 4.6 million liters of bulk wine less (-1.1%), losing almost 12 million euros (-4%), at a lower average price (from 69 cents per liter to 67 cents/liter).