Wine, sales in Italian large-sale distribution at -2.5% in volume (and +0.6% in value) in the first 6 months of 2024

Wine sales in the Italian large-sale distribution, during 2024, keep decreasing. After a lackluster March (despite the anticipation of Easter), the last three months brought down the balance of the six-month time period for sales with a total -2,5%, result of a -3,4% for still and sparkling wines (mainly the reds) and a +4,2% for Spumante. Slight increase (+0,6%) in the overall value of sales of Italian wines and sparkling wines in large-scale retail trade, reaching almost 1,4 billion euros, due to a -0.1% of still wines and a +3.5% of sparkling wines. A contraction, as for the volumes, that brings the semester to the historical minimum since pre-Covid (-9.5% on 2019), confirming the difficulties of still and sparkling wines (-13.5%) in the last five years and, also, the shift towards bubbly wines, which grew in the period by 33%. Driving the sparkling wine industry, for over a year now, is the growth of those Charmat non-Prosecco products, which Italians seem to have discovered as an ideal base for making some spritz at home. This is what emerges from the Nielsen-IQ data, processed by the Uiv-Ismea Observatory, which confirm the trend also highlighted by the Circana data, analyzed by WineNews(https://winenews.it/it/vino-e-gdo-nei-primi-6-mesi-2024-giu-i-volumi-tornano-a-crescere-solo-gli-spumanti_531005/).
Focusing the analysis on the dynamics of the April-June quarter, a note explains, wine purchases recorded an overall contraction of 3.9% in volumes, which is also accompanied by a -2.7% drop in spending. The novelty of the April-June quarter is in fact a temporary weakening on a trend basis of the inflation dynamics, with the average prices of the total of still and sparkling wines recording a timid +1.2% (against the +5.6% of March) and bubbly even declining (-1.3%). A setback for sparkling wines, probably determined by the destocking of products not consumed at Easter, which is also reflected in volumes: if the January-March trend marked a +11.7%, the year-on-year comparison of the April-June final figure records a -3.5%.
Summer is coming, and the red wines’ accounts are increasingly sinking to the red: -5% for the volume balance of the semester, against -2% of whites and -1% of rosés. Whites and rosés that, entering the consumption season, are starting to feel upward pressure on average prices, set at +5%. The dynamics of organic wines are also interesting and are for once performing better than conventional wines, probably because of more contained price pressures, around +2%. And if, according to the Uiv-Ismea Observatory, inflation continues to support common wines (+5% the average price, with -6% on volumes sold), it is Dop and Igp wines that are suffering the greatest erosion in sales (around -3%).