Export, Italian wine “sees” a new record: +5.4% in value in the first 11 months 2024

Italian wine “does not swerve” and maintains a steady pace of growth in exports, now increasingly close to an all-time record, when only the last “stage” is missing, that of December, which could be favorable, considering also the phenomenon of the end-of-year buying rush (as also shown by the Oemv report) to avoid the fear of possible duties of the Trump government that, it should be remembered, have not yet materialized for wine. In the first 11 months of 2024, overseas shipments of tricolor wines exceeded 7.5 billion euros, at +5.4% over the same period in 2023 (they were at +5.7% in the first 10 months), for 2 billion liters (+3.3%). An increase in value linked mainly, but not only, to sparkling wines, which, in 11 months, exceeded the value of 2.2 billion euros, with a leap of +9.3%, and approached 517 million liters, with a significant +12.6% demonstrating that almost all of the quantitative increases in Italian wine come from bubbles, which, therefore, have a decisive weight on total wine exports, amounting to 29.5% in value and about 25.5% in volume. This is confirmed by the latest Istat data, updated to November 2024, analyzed by WineNews, which confirms the growth trend of Italian wines in world markets in a historical period where, often, the focus shifts to the decline in consumption conditioned by economic issues and growing healthism.
Looking, however, at the performance in value of the main countries, the United States is confirmed, by detachment, as the leading partner market for Italian wineries, with +9% in the first 11 months of the year, which translates into 1.76 billion euros in value; but Germany’s figure is also up, at 1.1 billion euros, up +4%. Stable, but still in positive territory, is the United Kingdom, which marks +1.3%, at 805 million euros, and where the figure, in value, on sparkling wines (404.4 million euros), which exceed half of the overall total, is striking.
Still doing well is Canada, with +14.7% growth for 413.8 million euros, while Switzerland loses something, at -1.7% for 377.6 million euros, as does France, which stops at 286 million euros, with a loss of -1.6% (with a significant share of Italian bubbly exports to the Champagne country). They are one step away from 235 million euros of Italian wine exports in the Netherlands, with a jump of +9.4%. In terms of performance, the most substantial improvement is still that of Russia (+52%), which exported 216.1 million euros worth of Italian wine in the first 11 months of 2024, and, of these, 111.3 million euros concern sparkling wines. And that surpassed Belgium (-1.3%), which stands at 210.6 million euros, with Sweden improving on the figure from a year ago and touching 178.8 million euros (+2.7%).
The positive note from the Asian bloc comes from Japan, very close to 170 million euros in value (+4%), while Austria’s growth (+14.1% or 149.3 million euros) is brilliant, in contrast to Norway (-10.7%), which stands at 86.4 million euros. Still falling back is China, which stands at 81.2 million euros, down -9.8%, while South Korea is stable at 45.6 million euros (+1.1%).
Data aggregated for Italian wine that, in terms of balance sheets, make one see the “full glass” in many countries and in different areas of the world. And if the good news is that the desire for Italian style in the goblet remains strong, as does the solidity of the sector, we must not, however, certainly lose sight of the difficulties that many producers are facing, in many respects. The unknowns then, between excise taxes (Great Britain) and hypothetical duties (U.S.), are not lacking as well as the always heated debate on the issue of healthiness, also fueled by the EU Commission's review of the Beca (Beating Cancer Plan), which could lead to an increase in taxes and limitations on communication and promotion.