Third countries and CMO potential, for Italian wine many possibilities in “unsuspected” countries

Wine promotion, at the institutional level, is a major investment to improve sales of the product in third countries. It is a measure that also finds fertile ground in Italy, one of the world’s wine “powers”, to increase levels of competitiveness and the export bar. The new Ocm Vino notice, “Promotion in Third Country Markets”, has already been presented by the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, with a “ceiling” of 22 million euros at the national level, to which 71 million euros should be added for regional and multi-regional calls for a total investment exceeding 90 million euros. Ocm vino that have yielded their results as shown by the analysis produced by Nomisma Wine Monitor, in which it emerges how, in the last five years, exports of Italian bottled wines (still, semi-sparkling and sparkling) have increased by +27%, rising from €5.8 billion in 2018 to €7.3 billion in 2023. Of this amount, 60% relates to exports to third markets, outside the European Union, and therefore potential beneficiaries of promotional initiatives financed with CMO Vino funds. Even countries that are still small, and in some ways unsuspected, as wine markets. Taking as reference those third markets that, in 2023, imported Italian wine for a countervalue of at least 5 million euros, for example, stands out above all Ecuador, which in a decade has increased sixfold its wine purchases from Italy. In second place by percentage growth is Turkey (+390%), followed by Serbia, Kazakhstan and Colombia. Among the top most dynamic markets with also a larger export value (over 20 million euros), Ukraine, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates are also reported. For an Italian wine that continues to make more than half of its export turnover between the U.S., U.K. and Germany, but is increasingly looking at a key aspect such as market diversification.