First four months 2022: in the USA, Germany and the UK Italian wine exports at 1.3 billion (-1%)

The run of Italian sparkling wines in the world’s top three markets (the USA, Germany and the UK) continues, but that of still wines comes to a halt, and in the UK Prosecco is more than a craze, so much so that it is now worth more than 2/3 of the volume of sparkling wines imported into the UK from around the world. In the first four months of 2022, in fact, Prosecco managed the feat of single-handedly surpassing the value sales of all Italian still wines combined. An unprecedented result (which the Uiv Observatory recorded considering re-exports on products in transit, especially from Belgium), which sets the growth over the first four months of 2021 at +127% in value and +74% in volume.

Customs-based analysis by Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv) carried out on bottled wine imports of the top three world markets returns a picture of light and shadow, with some unknowns about the future. The first four months, aided by a significant setback in April, closes at -1% overall in value (data harmonized to the dollar, equal to 1.3 billion), and in volume, the sign veers even more negative: -4.1%, to 2.5 million hectoliters. The effect is the combination of 2 opposite sides of the same coin: on the one hand, the still wine type, with imported volumes falling by -10% and values at -9%; on the other hand, sparkling wines flying at +17% in volume and +30% in value.

Among the countries considered, bottled volumes in the U.S. show a trend decrease of more than -2% for still wines and a new jump for sparkling (+12%). Red light in Germany for both types, at -18% and -12% respectively, while the tricolor import in the UK plays a leading role in the negative with still wines (-8%) and in the positive for sparkling wines (+35%).

“We believe it is unlikely to replicate the performance of 2021, an exceptional year that recorded growths, from April to September, of almost 30%”, comments the president of Unione Italiana Vini (Uiv), Lamberto Frescobaldi: “this would be a normal year if it were not for a conflict that has exacerbated the tension on energy costs and those of dry raw materials. A conjuncture, to which is added inflation, that is becoming difficult and that impacts our businesses on average 20-30% more than the cost of the finished product. For this reason”, Frescobaldi concludes, “it will be appropriate to consider with the institutions’ extraordinary actions to structure the sector in defense of increasingly frequent exogenous factors and in favor of new internationalization projects”.