Fewer wineries, but larger: Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) photographed the wine scene

There are fewer wineries in Italy, but they are larger. In terms of size, though, France still wins “5 to 1”. The Observatory of the Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) photographed the Italian wine scene, revealing that over the past twenty years there are 500.000 fewer Italian wineries. However, the vineyard area is stable (-11%, and -1% in the last decade), while the 255.000 remaining wineries (there were 791.000 in 2000) are now better organized, while the average vineyard surface area has grown 174%. The Observatory of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) has elaborated the most recent ISTAT Agricultural Census, updated to 2020, with a vertical on wine. According to UIV, there has been a morphological revolution, necessary to the Italian vineyard and its companies that over the past 20 years have increased the value of exports 165%. It has thus become the number one agricultural sector in foreign trade and is one of the main trade surplus supporters of the total Made in Italy, which accounts for nearly 14%.
Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) said, “Italy is progressively organizing its wineries with respect to production varieties, which are the true wealth of our wines. This is the right path, even though there is still a long way to go to get closer to the average surface area of ​​our main competitors, such as Australia, the USA and New Zealand, or closer to us, in France where the average size per company is 5 times higher than ours”.
Compared to twenty years ago, the number of companies has dropped more markedly in the Center (-75%), and the trend is average also in the North-west (-70%). Looking at the regions, in 2000 Campania boasted the largest number of companies (86,000), while today it counts just over 22.000, marking a 74% decrease, while the Lazio region has marked the biggest reduction, -83%. According to the latest ISTAT census, Apulia counts the largest number of companies (36.000), followed by Sicily (30.000) and Veneto (27.000). There are Fewer farms but on average they have larger plots, especially in Northern Italy, where the average vineyard area is 3.4 hectares, compared to a National average of 2.5 (it was 0.9 in 2000 and 1.6 ten years later ). As far as the vineyard area is concerned, peaks are in Friuli Venezia Giulia (5.5 hectares), followed by Lombardy at 4, Veneto at 3.8, (which registered the biggest growth: + 295%), Tuscany at 3.6, and Piedmont at 3.4. According to UIV, there are 255.000 wineries, which represent 23% of the total 1.1 million agricultural enterprises surveyed by ISTAT. In the special ranking of total percentage of wine on companies, Trentino wins at an impact of 43%, followed by Veneto, 32%, then Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna (31%). Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Abruzzi, Campania, Umbria and Marche are also well above the average.