For the holidays, 273 million bottles of Italian bubbles uncorked in the world: +1,3%

Native, Italian and for all budgets: Italy confirms itself as a protagonist in the sales of sparkling wines in the world also in the year of Covid-19. And the most “homemade” consumers of all time show, despite everything, they do not want to give up a symbol of the holidays, which, however, records a replacement effect: down the top of the range, Champagne in the first place, on the most accessible products. The result, according to estimates on the consumption of bubbles in the upcoming festivities of the Wine Observatory by Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) and Ismea, is in line with last year on the volume front, with 273 million Italian bottles sold worldwide during the holidays (+1.3% on 2019), of which almost 74 million in Italy (-2.3%), for a total on a global scale of over 1.6 billion glasses made in Italy raised. Instead, the trend in value is different, reported overall in a contraction of 9%, between domestic and foreign demand.
There will be over 77 million bottles of sparkling wine consumed in Italy between Christmas and New Year's Eve, and of these only 3.5 million will be foreign on the tables of the most local holidays in recent years. Overall, Christmas and New Year’s Eve will see a little less uncorking (-2.8%) but mainly due to the drop in imported sparkling wines (-12.5%, or less than 5% of the total), with Italian sparkling wine at -2.3% (almost 74 million bottles). Italian exports are doing better, growing by 2.7% with almost 200 million Italian sparkling wines close to consumption. According to the UIV-Ismea forecast, the next holidays will be worth about 35% of annual sales of sparkling wines in Italy, thanks to sales in large-scale distribution and in off-trade channels, which will keep afloat a market of out-of-home products in curfew. A substitution effect of the Italian demand that, if on the one hand considerably mitigates the variation in volume, on the other hand, in value could create a drop in turnover of over 12%, forecast at 199 million euros.
The total production of Italian sparkling wines in 2020 should be confirmed at the same levels of last year, at 776 million bottles, against an import market which does not reach 10 million pieces (-12.5%). The incidence of export in volume exceeds 73% and this year has rewarded above all the export oriented appellations, whereas the classic method appellations, whose market is more addressed to the Italian horeca, have had more problems.
“Estimates of sales in Italy and abroad in this particular economic situation - said Paolo Castelletti, secretary general of Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) - reward the greater versatility of the range of Italian sparkling wines, which are able to react more flexibly to market dynamics. It is necessary, however, to remember how in front of a substantial holding of volumes, even our sparkling wines are paying a high price on the value game, abroad as in Italy. UIV - concluded Castelletti - therefore considers it essential to monitor a phenomenon on the one hand attributable to the lower purchasing power of consumers and a consequent substitution effect, on the other hand to unacceptable speculative conduct found along the commercial chains off and online”.