Export, down Italian wine in the UK and Germany. Concerns about the drop in average price

As was easy to expect, the lockdown has had a huge impact on Italian wine exports to its main European markets, Germany and the UK. In the first 4 months of 2020, the Belpaese sold -1.3% in Germany, which is confirmed even in this period of pandemic market little prone to strong and sudden shocks, both positive and negative, while in the UK the damage was much stronger, in the order of -15.6% over the same period of the year. All this in a context in which value wine imports, overall, decreased by 8.9% in Germany, and by 13.3% overseas. This trend was mainly affected by the collapse in April. This is confirmed by the analysis of the Osservatorio Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor on a customs basis. But in addition to the overall drop in values, there are also other factors to worry about. According to the Osservatorio, an undeniably difficult situation given not only by the trend in customs registrations but also by the average price falling and the more than probable stocks accrued in the warehouses of distributors and importers, is counterbalanced by a greater holding capacity compared to the main competitor, France. The result is an increase in market shares in Germany (from 36.8% to 39.9%) and a substantial holding in the UK. The alarm, however, over and above the volumes sold, comes from the average price: -18% in Great Britain and -7% in Germany in April compared to the previous quarter.
“The pressure on prices is worrying - said the head of the Osservatorio Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor, Denis Pantini - as evidence of the fact that retailers are putting pressure on producers also in light of the first signs of the recession that are emerging in these countries and that will necessarily affect wine purchases”. “It is crucial not to interrupt the dialogue with our market interlocutors - said Giovanni Mantovani, dg Veronafiere - this is the purpose of “Wine2Wine Exhibition & Forum”, a dynamic and innovative event based on digital and physical b2b interaction that starts now and ends at the fair in Verona on November 22-24, with the prologue of “Opera Wine”, created with Wine Spectator”.
In any case, Italian wine can seek some consolation in the fact that the historical competitor, France, has been much worse off, with -19.8% in Germany in the first 4 months of 2020, and -24.9% in the United Kingdom, with data dragged down strongly since April 2020, with the transalpines, who lost around -40% in value in both countries. It goes better, instead, to Spain and New Zealand, the latter growing in the United Kingdom, explains the Osservatorio, where it reaches the third place among producer countries at the expense of Australia and in the four-month period marks green light in both countries.