Between logistics and inflation, bulk market slows, but Italian prices remain stable

Substantially “slow”, between ongoing harvests and vacations in the Northern Hemisphere, where the vast majority of the world’s wine is produced, the bulk wine market, photographed in August 2022 by the Global Market Report by Ciatti, one of the world’s largest wine brokers, reveals some less than reassuring trends.
While still, somewhat surprisingly, prices of generic and bulk wines to appellations are not only not going up, but seem to be dropping by a few points despite rising production costs, stocks of product (especially red wines) already purchased but put back on the market by those who no longer need them or cannot sell them at retail are becoming available again. And this, the report explains, is symptomatic of several factors: from problems in shipping (with the cost of containers dropping to the peaks of September 2021, but remaining at more than double the average of the past 5 years) to the difficulty of sourcing bottles, for example, amid product shortages and sky-high costs. But, above all, there is concern about the probable slowdown in retail sales in the coming months, mainly due to inflation, which, in many countries around the world, including the US, the world’s leading wine market, remains above +8%, with forecasts saying that in the UK in October we will be at +13% (according to the Bank of England), in Australia we are heading toward +7.7%, and in the Eurozone the latest forecasts for July 2022 that speak of +8.9% at the end of the year. So many factors that generate uncertainty, and for which “it is very difficult to predict what will happen to the market in the last quarter of 2022, and even more so in 2023”, explains Rob Selby, who signs Ciatti’s Report.
Narrowing the focus on Italy, Ciatti explains, the bulk market has been held back by a lack of products such as bottles and labels, and by slowing sales in retail, with Pinot Grigio at -16% and Prosecco Doc at -7.3%, in July 2022, for example, although the comparison is on a July 2021, with particularly high volumes. In any case, stocks of white wines, Ciatti explains, are beginning to deplete, while a greater abundance of red wines is expected, with sustained demand for those from Piedmont, Tuscany, and Valpolicella, as well as organic wines. On the price front, looking at generic whites, prices are stable between 50 and 60 euro cents ex cellar, per liter, for those with alcohol contents up to 10.5 degrees and between 53 and 75 cents for those with an alcohol content between 11 and 13, with organic ones popping prices between 70 and 90 cents. Again, stable Pinot Grigio, with that of the Venezie Doc between 1.1 and 1.2 euros per liter, as well as Soave, between 0.95 and 1.1 euros per liter, and Prosecco Doc also holds its price, between 2.45 and 2.55 euros per liter. Among the reds, generic ones with an alcohol content between 11 and 12 quote between 45 and 60 euro cents per liter, and those on 13 degrees between 60 and 80 cents, declining, while going between 0.85 and 1.15 euros for organic ones. Among varietals, already the prices of Primitivo Igt Puglia, which ticks prices between 1.2 and 1.5 euros per liter, stable Chianti Docg (2020 vintage), which moves between 1.9 and 2 euros per liter.