Italian wine, extra-Eu export is suffering in the first quarter of 2026, but is improving

The “balance” of Italian wine exports worldwide in the first part of 2026 compared to 2025 remains negative, but shows improvement. This is stated by data from Istat (covering the first two months of the year), analyzed by WineNews, and confirmed, looking only at extra-EU markets, by the Unione Italiana Vini - Uiv Observatory. According to the latter, “Italian-made products close in the extra-EU area at close to 1 billion euros (year-on-year values at -11%), limiting the losses recorded over the two-month period (-16%), thanks to a March 2026 that was essentially stable (-2.3% in value and +3.9% in volume)”.
According to the analysis, based on official data - explains a note - what has eased part of the decline is not the traditional destination markets, but the more promising ones, with strong increases in Russian, Chinese, Brazilian, and Mexican demand. Among the top buyers, the United States, which, despite some signs of improvement, closes a difficult quarter (-20.5%), also affected by frontloading carried out by American importers at the beginning of 2025 in anticipation of additional tariffs.