More and more women, but also more and more “elderly” are drinking Italian wine

Wine is a National heritage in Italy, as well as a narrator of stories and territories, and a creator of beauty and wealth. However, even though the market is often “eclipsed” by the successes of exports, it is still (and probably will forever be) the most important for Italian wineries since it is worth almost half of the turnover, yet not everyone drinks wine. Considering the estimated adult population is 49.7 million people, a hefty slice drinks wine once a month, equal to 34.8 million people. On the other hand, just over half of the people drink wine on a weekly basis: 27.3 million. The data that the Wine Intelligence study, “Italy Wine Landscapes” revealed, needs to be interpreted in two ways because, it means that many Italians have not yet been won over by the charm of Bacchus, but it also means that there is still a lot of space for growth. According to the British agency, the impact of the Pandemic, though, was apparently felt deeply in the demographic composition of consumers. As a matter of fact, in 2021 women, the percentage of women consuming wine was 55% (up from 49% in 2020). They outdid men, who were downgraded to 45% (compared to 51% in 2020). Further, the average age of consumers is also rising, since the over 65 years group, which weighed in at 27% of consumption in 2020, has grown to39% in 2021, and even the age group between 55 and 64 has gone up from 15% to 16%. On the other hand, the age group between 45 and 54 years was stable, at 19%, while, instead, all the younger groups fell behind. Another interesting aspect that was revealed, and which gives the sense of the economic impact of Covid-19 on a now luxury consumer good such as wine, is the change in income brackets. Only families that had an annual income above 75,000 euros grew sharply, jumping from 6% to 24% of the consumption share. Instead, families that had an income of less than 15,000 euros almost disappeared from the radar (from 9% in 2020 to 2% in 2021), and all the other brackets lost their share, with the exception of the income bracket between 50,000 and 75,000 euros, which grew from 10% to 11%. Summing up, therefore, the largest contingent of regular wine drinkers in Italy is made up of consumers over 65 and an annual (family) income between 28,000 and 50,000 euros. The study also revealed that of the various wine indications, white wine is at the top of the preferences, and has been drunk at least once in the last year by 89% of wine consumers, slightly ahead of red wine (86%) and beer (85%), followed by Prosecco (64%).