Exports of Italian sparkling wines reached 1 billion euros in the first half of 2026 (+0.4%)

Italian wine exports are currently facing a difficult period, but the situation is not uniform across the board. In fact, following a trend that is not new, while still wines are bearing the brunt of the decline in market demand, sparkling wines, at least in the first half of 2026, are performing better, in terms of value, compared to the first half of 2025. The overall figures for Italian wine, according to Istat data previously analyzed and published by WineNews, showed 3.6 billion euros in value (-6.16% compared to the same period in 2025) and a 4% decline in volume to 989.6 million liters (-4%); however, the picture is different when sparkling wines are analyzed separately: in the first half of 2026, according to Istat data analyzed by WineNews, Italian sparkling wines totaled approximately 1 billion euros in exports, a figure that remained stable compared to the first half of 2025, albeit with a slight increase (+0.4%). In terms of volume, again in the first six months of 2026, Italian sparkling wines totaled 252.2 million liters (-0.7%), another figure reflecting stability despite a slight decline.
The United States, the leading market by value for Italian wine, imported sparkling wine worth 263 million euros (-6.6%), a decline that was, however, significantly less severe than the overall decline of -14.1%, which encompassed all types of wine. The volume of Italian sparkling wine imported by the U.S. also fell to 60 million liters (-2.4%) . The second-largest market by value for Italian sparkling wines is the United Kingdom, where exports totaled 151.5 million euros (-10.8%) in the first half of 2026, marking a double-digit decline, while Germany, at 64.4 million euros, saw growth of +2.7%.
The sparkling wine figures are inevitably influenced by the performance of the “Prosecco universe”, the driving force behind Italian wine exports. Prosecco DOP, which in the first six months of 2026 totaled 825.4 million in exports (and thus accounted for approximately 82% of sparkling wine exports), a result not far from that of the first half of 2025 (-1.3%), with volumes at 194.6 million liters (-0.3%). The United States, the leading market for Prosecco DOP, imported 236.9 million euros worth of the product (-7.2%).
While the situation for Italian sparkling wines is not without its challenges, the response from foreign markets is, nonetheless, better than that for still wines, confirming the trend toward the rise of products with lower alcohol content that also serve as a valuable base for mixology.