Exports of Italian wine are growing, but not running: 2019 to 6.36 billion euros (+2.9 on 2018)

Italian wine in the world is growing in small steps, even if it doesn't run faster than in recent years. With the market data that tell of an improvement on the face of still wines, in difficulty in the recent past and the first signs of settling on that of sparkling wines (however growing), protagonists in recent years of an impetuous ride on the markets in the world. The summary is that the export of Italian wine is preparing to celebrate at the end of the year the goal of ten consecutive historical records, with a value of 6.36 billion euros and a growth of 2.9% on 2018. A picture that consolidates the Belpaese wine in second place among the world enological superpowers (Spain, third, will lose almost 7%) but that distances it from an increasingly leading France thanks to a commercial jump set at + 7.8% thus allowing them to to overcome the 10 billion euro export threshold for the first time. According to the estimates of the Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor Observatory on a customs basis, at the center of Wine2Wine is the Vinitaly training and networking event in Verona. According to the Observatory, which analysed the trends of the first 7 exporting countries (France, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and the USA), crossing the flows of the 10 main world countries of demand, 2019 will close with a positive result for the trade-in Italian wine, but even more so at a global level. The increase in imports of the “seven sisters of wine”, despite the uncertainty over duties and economic crises, will be 3.6%, with exceptional performances such as those of New Zealand (+10.2%) and Chile (+5.8%), while countries such as Australia (-0.3%) and the USA (-3.7%) turn negative.
“The observation of the markets gives us highly competitive photography of the sector - said the director general of Veronafiere, Giovanni Mantovani - a competition that has grown directly in proportion to a business that is increasingly decisive for the economies of individual countries. Our task is to bring added value to the Italian product through the process and system innovation capable of raising our market shares. Like Vinitaly, the increase in the US and Chinese buyers planned for the next edition will be important, where the Impact factor project will be launched, which includes an interaction with companies to optimize the flow of buyers, also thanks to the traceability guaranteed by new technologies”.

The Italian performance shows wide room for improvement, from the average price (down 2%) to greater reactivity in emerging markets and less dependence on increasingly mature historical markets, such as Germany and the United Kingdom. “Needless to say, the game is played mainly in Asia - continued Mantovani - where we want to be decisive. In fact, with our Chinese partner, we have set up a joint venture company, the Shenzhen Baina International Exhibition, for the organization of WineToAsia, scheduled from 9 to 11 November 2020 in the new Shenzhen World exhibition center.” The first edition of WineToAsia, b2b event, foresees the participation of 400 exhibitors and is configured from the beginning of international scope, with the presence of Italian companies, European but also from China and the New World, involving also the main companies of the technologies protagonists at Enolitech.

For the manager of the Vinitaly-Nomisma Wine Monitor Observatory, Denis Pantini, “2019 will see a further increase in exports of Italian wine, with significant increases in markets such as Japan, where the free trade agreement with the European Union has facilitated trade. All this in a market scenario that, on the contrary, is dominated by protectionist upheavals and trade wars that do not benefit the growth of exports, including Italy, at all. If it is established that the development of international trade allows growth in GDP and incomes, it is also shown that wine consumption is highly sensitive to changing incomes: where they grow, consumption increases more than proportionally and vice versa. In short, the risk that seems to emerge for the next few years is that of a general slowdown in international trade in wine that will necessarily affect our wines as well”.
Overall, the made in Italy is given in reassuring recovery with its still wines (+3.3%), while sparkling wines - protagonists of the exploit in recent years - “slow down” to +5.8%, due to the effect of the contraction in Uk. Finally, the fall in price penalizes the bulk market (-10%). In detail, the demand for Italian wine will see Japan as the champion of growth, with an increase in the value of over 17% to almost 200 million euros, followed by Russia - in strong recovery (+11.1%) even after the good performance of last year - and Canada with +6.2%. The USA (+5%) is doing well, the first market in the world with a closure close to 1.8 billion euros, although the increase will be lower than the average general import (+7.5%) and especially the +11.4% of France (very close to 2 billion euros), but conditioned in positive by the race for the product in the phase of additional pre-duties, which will be felt especially in the middle of the red and rosé especially from the first months of 2020.
Turned negative Great Britain (-2.8%), due to a sharp decrease in demand for Italian sparkling wines, Sweden (-0.8%) and China (-3.8%), where, however, the Belpaese will do better than the average import of the Dragon thanks to a good recovery in the second half of the year.