To rebalance wine supply and demand, grubbing-up is not the way. But the debate is open

There is one issue, absolutely central to France, one of the “top player” wine countries, which has made a kind of breakaway in this regard, but which is also beginning to be discussed at the European level, and that is the grubbing up of vineyards. The reason is well known, as we have written several times in WineNews: to rebalance the market and not let prices collapse, with the grubbings started in Bordeaux, and with France now asking for the green light from the European Commission to finance with 120 million euros the grubbing up of up to 30,000 hectares of vines nationwide, with a premium of up to 4,000 euros. But the topic is divisive, and there is no shortage, in fact, of those opposed to the grubbing-up solution. Clear opposition has long been the position of the Unione Italiana Vini (UIV), a body with 770 member companies representing more than 150,000 wine growers, more than 50% of Italian wine turnover and more than 85% of that related to exports, as reiterated by Uiv president Lamberto Frescobaldi in the presentation of the 2024 grape harvest estimates today at “DiviNazione Expo” 2024 in Ortigia, while more possibilistic, but under certain conditions, seemed the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, according to which in some areas it can be talked about, but providing “a conversion, if anything, to other crops, because we do not want the abandonment of the territory”, and Assoenologi president Riccardo Cotarella, according to whom “explanting vines indiscriminately is wrong, but in certain areas or territories it is an issue that can be discussed”, premising, however, that the real problem, Cotarella said, is excessive yields (in the plains they can reach up to 400 quintals per hectare), which damage quality, lower prices and penalize hillside viticulture.
In any case, that grubbing up is not a solution, according to Unione Italiana Vini, is supported by the numbers. “Over the years in Italy there have been explantations, and vineyards have been lost (from 800,000 hectares in 2000 to 675,000 in 2023, ed.), but in the meantime in some harvests even 53 or 55 million hectoliters of wine have been produced. Grubbing up is not the solution; you grub up already unproductive vineyards. Besides, let’s look at France: 4,000 euros per hectare is not much. We are talking, however, in total, about 120 million euros, and we in Italy don’t want to lose resources for communication, for example, of the CMO funds, which have been fundamental. Maybe we reflect on the +1% increase in acreage and how to manage it. If we take Tuscany as an example”, Frescobaldi said, “today it would be 560 hectares: maybe, if no one asks for them in other territories, they all go to Montalcino and Bolgheri. Initially outside the appellation, where the vineyard rolls are closed, but in the meantime, vineyards are planted in the territories”.
According to Frescobaldi, the central issue that needs to be addressed is yields, but not only that. “We need to address the issue of reducing yields, because sometimes we talk about that compared to wine potential, but then the numbers don't always add up. We have tools such as harvest reserves, which are little used in Italy, that allow us to set aside product for perhaps poorer vintages. We need to adjust to 40-43 million hectoliters per year, not increase this threshold. Increasing promotion is, on the other hand, fundamental, we have many Italians in the world, in catering, let’s bring them our wines. Climate change must also be managed, if we plant Pinot Grigio everywhere, and then harvest it on August 18, something is wrong, it means we need, for example, cooler areas”.
In any case, the hypothesis of financing the uprooting of vineyards is on the European tables, but for Unione Italiana Vini it is the wrong path. With Frescobaldi recalling how, in the recent past, “we have already spent just under 300 million euros between 2009 and 2011 to grub up 31,000 hectares of vineyards, mainly hilly and with a high vocation. Result? We impoverished the territories, and two years after taking out the last vineyard, we produced”, he reiterated, “a beauty of 53 million hectoliters, and that was 2013. Are we thinking of retracing this path? As UIV, we have done a couple of accounts, on the French model, because we are still not talking about figures in Italy, on how much it would cost us in economic and productive terms to eliminate 30,000 hectares by paying 4,000 euros each. Well, 120 million euros would be spent to take about 2 million hectoliters off the market on the average yields of the various territories. Meanwhile, with the growth rates of the vineyard (1,600 hectares per year or so), we would arrive in 2030 with 650,000 hectares, still capable of producing 52 million hectoliters in abundant vintages, but dropping to 35 million in poor ones like 2023. It would mean that the variance between an abundant vintage and a poor one could also be 17 million hectoliters, under or over: there, I don’t know how one can think of planning with such somersaults. Taking away 30,000 hectares does not automatically serve to calm the potential of the vineyard, but it certainly exposes it to the risk of shock in case of poor vintages, which have become increasingly frequent in recent years”.
Unione Italiana Vini proposes, rather, to focus on “just in time” containment mechanisms for those vintages expected to be abundant and therefore focusing on “real reduction of yields of PDO wines and elimination of redundancies; suspension of derogations for yields of common wines, to be brought back to 300 quintals per hectare; implementation of green harvests with more attractive incentives; and use of ‘lung’ mechanisms, such as harvest reserves. Speaking of potential, our country's goal should be to stay as regularly as possible on a production threshold of 43-45 million hectoliters, a quantity that has historically proven easier to manage. At the strategic level, rather than using resources to destroy vineyards and product, the main concern should be to support those who, despite a thousand difficulties, want to stay in this business through targeted and increasingly rational supports that also cover scientific research”. The priorities, in this case, concern, continues Frescobaldi, “the issue of responding to climatic stress, starting in the vineyard, with the selection (or even rediscovery) of resistant varieties and clones, with late ripening or lower sugar potential. This must be the basis for developing productions that can respond to changing consumer tastes, thus lighter, low-alcohol wines, to dealcolates or zero alcohols”. And again, “the theme of productive potential, with the revisiting of the system of scattered authorizations, which must be replaced with targeted releases toward those territories/firms that have real capacity for development. And the theme of support for promotion in the markets, a measure that must be made increasingly efficient through not only bureaucratic streamlining, but above all with the concentration of resources on highly qualified projects that demonstrate on balance that they have really contributed to the development of territories or companies. Times have changed drastically and are changing fast. Our industry needs to look to the future in a secular way and massive injections of managerialism at all levels. The decisions we make today will have repercussions for the next ten to twenty years; we cannot afford mistakes”.
Also because, in the end, “the scenario for the closing of this 2024 and for 2025 is not the best: we have a vintage that somewhat duplicates last year’s. The summer in quantitative terms has seen increasing tourist flows, especially from abroad, so much so that at one point we complained about too many tourist presences crammed into large cities, so-called “overtourism.” But then we see the reports from the restaurant industry, and the sentiment is worrying: according to Fipe (Italian Federation of Public Establishments, ed.) data for the second quarter of 2024, the balance between positive and negative expectations on turnover drops to -23%, with -40% in relation to registered place settings. We have the good fortune of being a country that attracts, but the misfortune of not knowing how to manage and direct flows evenly throughout the territory, which for wine would be of extraordinary importance. As a result of all this, we find ourselves today with production areas that are doing well, egregiously well, see the territories that produce Prosecco or those that have been able to build consolidated wine tourism flows over time, such as Montalcino or Etna, just to mention two school cases; others that instead are suffering deeply, and I dare say in silence”.