Crisis distillation, agreement between the Ministry of Agriculture and the State-Regions Conference

50 million, as announced: this is the budget that will be available to wine producers for the distillation of generic wines, aimed at disposing of some stocks that risk remaining in the cellar due to the impact of Covid. Resources which, it is worth pointing out, are not additional to what is already provided for in the National Support Plan, but which come from what could not or could not be spent by other measures such as promotion, restructuring and so on. In any case, just in these hours came the green light of the Conference State Regions to the Decree of Agricultural Policies, “which activates, for the 2019/2020 campaign, the crisis distillation of ordinary wine, to which is allocated a budget of 50 million euros. The measure, included in the Common Organization of the Wine Market, is financed with Community funds and has the dual objective of reducing product stocks and contributing to the supply of ethyl alcohol, to be used mainly for the production of disinfectants”.
“The crisis distillation - underlines the Minister Bellanova - is only the first of the various measures that we have planned in favour of the wine sector to face the crisis resulting from the Covid 19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown imposed by Governments all over the world, which have blocked the commercial and tourist accommodation activities, causing an increase in wine stocks and strong concerns among operators, especially in view of the new harvest. It is therefore necessary to intervene on several fronts to lighten the market and avoid overproduction that could affect not only the price trend, but also the image of our quality products. For this reason, in agreement with the supply chain and the Regions, an overall strategy has been developed that, in addition to distillation, provides for further important interventions, first of all the voluntary reduction of the production of grapes destined for quality wines, to the implementation of which 100 million euros (of national resources, ed. ndr) have been allocated through the Relaunch Law Decree”.
While crisis distillation intervenes at the expense of ordinary wines, the Ministry emphasizes, the reduction of production is aimed exclusively at quality wines, and producers will be able to join it voluntarily, with the expectation of also affecting the improvement of the quality of the grapes we will find in the bottle starting from next year. Moreover, again in the Relaunch Decree, there is an amendment to the so called Testo Unico sul Vino, which provides for the reduction of the maximum yield per hectare of grapes destined to common wines to 30 tons, compared to the current 50 tons. A structural intervention that launches a clear message on the quality path undertaken by the Italian wine sector, increasingly linked to the production of excellence, closely linked to our Made in Italy.