Crisis distillation: Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv): “not with promotion and investment funds”

According to the Osservatorio Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv), data on wine stocks in Italy in March 2023 (60 million hectoliters) is the highest in the last five years, representing a 5.1% increase (+8.6% for DOPs) over the same period in 2022. In Italy, cellar stocks have increased by 11% in the last three years, despite stable production; if the current trend continues, due to declining sales, the next harvest could have the highest stock load in the last 20 years. As WineNews predicted, somewhere in Italy, despite the triumphalism on exports (increased in value but not in quantity in 2022, and declining in 2023), difficulties in disposing of the abundant stocks begin to emerge, and we begin to talk about “distillation”, as has already happened in France and Spain (as described here). And in this regard, in the “Wine Table”, convened today at the Ministry of Agriculture, “to examine the market situation on possible intervention measures aimed at tackling the crisis in the wine sector”, the Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv) says “against the diversion, in favor of crisis distillation, of funds already committed to promotion and investments”.
While acknowledging and widely anticipating the sector’s particular moment of difficulty, “the Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) believes that the buffer measure cannot penalize the sector by draining strategic funds for its growth”, explains a note. Should it become necessary in some areas of the country, the distillation measure should be able to rely on ad hoc regional funds. In any case, distillation only temporarily repairs structural cracks that have already been identified on the system. It would be appropriate to take advantage of the “Wine Table” to critically address dynamics, such as overproduction, which also generate distortions in terms of remuneration of the supply chain”.