Exports, Italian wine increasingly negative: values at -1.9% in the first 9 months 2023 (on 2022)

With the same volumes exported, i.e., 1.5 billion liters, exported values continue to fall, stopping at 5.6 billion euros, with a loss of -1.9%: this is the balance, still negative, of Italian wine exports in the first 9 months of 2023 (compared to the same period in 2022), which emerges from the data updated, today, by Istat, analyzed by WineNews. Data that turn sharply for the worse, compared to the timid signals recorded on the data updated in August 2023, which seemed to improve, albeit slightly, compared to the period immediately preceding. Growing, at least in value, are only a few markets in Old Europe, including Germany, the United Kingdom, France and surprising Russia, while double-digit losses are being made in North America, where perhaps the problems are linked to something more structural than simple “destocking” by importers, and Asia, where China continues its regression, but where all the main eastern landings of Italian wine are losing.
Looking at individual countries, and starting as always with those closest to Italy, in Europe the good news comes from major markets such as Germany, which makes +3.7% in value, to 865.6 million euros, and the United Kingdom, at +3.5%, for 602 million euros. France also continues to grow, surpassing 234 million euros, with a robust +13.8%, as do the Netherlands, at +4.5% for 171.7 million euros, Sweden, at +1% for 149.9 million euros, Austria, at +4.4% for 101 million euros, and Russia, which with +13% slightly exceeds 106 million euros of imported Italian wine. And here, in the panel of countries analyzed, which put together 4.7 billion euros in exports, more than 80% of Italian wine exports by value, the positive signs end.
Because if Switzerland loses something, at -1.4% (298 million euros) and Belgium, at -3% (166.1 million euros), and Denmark (-11% at 104 million euros) and Norway (-8.8%, at 74.9 million euros) make a sharp negative mark, things get worse, even worse, going outside the continental borders. The U.S., which remains nevertheless and by far the leading market for Italian wine by value, incurs a -9.9% that brings the bill to a halt at 1.3 billion euros, and on a percentage basis Canada does even worse, down -17.4%, to 286.6 million euros. And the trend does not change from the East: Japan, which remains the backbone of Italian wine exports to Asia, makes -11.2%, to 140.4 million euros. Trend in line with (much larger) China, still down -11.5%, to 69.7 million euros. And while it also loses -2.8% to Hong Kong, which had so far held its own while weighing in at just 19.2 million euros, the star of South Korea, which had shown great signs of growth in the recent past but now collapses by -34.5%, to 37.8 million euros, already seems to be eclipsing.
In this scenario, so complex and with increasingly gloomy hues, of course, there will be no shortage of realities that, when we look at the year-end financial statements, in the coming months, will still mark a growth, most likely, even in exports. But the fact of the matter is that the Italian wine system, which, in exports, over the past 20 years, has always found the impetus for growth, is in trouble. And reversing course, in the short term, appears far from simple.