In the first 11 months of 2022 Italian wine shipments at 7.27 billion euros: +10.6%

The path is set, and the record for Italian wine exports, expected to reach 8 billion euros in 2022, is getting closer. In the first 11 months of 2022, in fact, wine shipments touched 7.27 billion euros, +10.6% growth over the same period in 2021, practically zeroing the effects of inflation. Thus the Istat data for November 2022, analyzed as always by WineNews, with the Italian agri-food sector, according to Coldiretti estimates, as a whole reaching 60.7 billion euros in turnover from exports, thanks to Germany (9.4 billion euros), the United States (6.6 billion euros) and France (6.5 billion euros).

Returning to wine, the picture sketched by the November 2022 data confirms the slow decline in shipment growth that ran through last year: in January growth was as high as 22% over January 2021, certainly not an exhaustive term of comparison, then the effects of the war in Ukraine and the unregulated run of inflation slowed the run of Italian wine shipments in the world, with some markets, confirming the latest surveys, showing a slight backward trend, while volumes, at just over 20 million hectoliters, are almost the same as those exported in the first 11 months of 2021.

In the 18 countries of the Eurozone, shipments of Italian wine reached 2.25 billion euros, up +11.4%, and among the best performing markets is once again France, which, despite internal problems and the need to recreate a balance between production and the consumption market, imported 273.3 million euros of wine from Italy (+26.6%), with sparkling wines, essentially Prosecco, touching 100 million euros (+29.6%). On the first European market, Germany, Italian wine grows by +4.8%, to 1.08 billion euros, and even here sparkling wines, which invoice 123 million euros, mark a much higher trend: +7.9%. The United Kingdom is still doing very well, coming in at 754 million euros (+11.5%), with the sparkling category worth just under half of all Italian wine exported to the British market: 369.4 million euros (+22.2%).

Another key market is Switzerland, which, in the first 11 months of 2022, imported 390 million euros of Italian wine (+4%), with neighboring Austria coming in, however, at 122 million euros of wine imports from Italy (+17%). Belgium (€218.6 million) and the Netherlands (€218.1 million) had virtually identical results, for growth of +10.1% and +6.8%, respectively, but with a huge difference on the sparkling wine front, which in Amsterdam lost ground (-2%, amounting to €23.5 million), while in Brussels they were worth €84.6 million (+26.2%).

The sore points, for the European markets, all come from the Scandinavian countries, with the usual happy exception of Sweden, where imports grew by 8.8%, to 198 million euros. On the other hand, both Norway, which imported 103 million euros of Italian wine (-6.6%) in the first 11 months of 2022, and Denmark, which stopped at 146.6 million euros (-5.2%), confirm the slowdown.

It deserves its own chapter the data on Russia, because Moscow, now isolated from the rest of the West, has never stopped importing wine from Europe. It has full power to do so, wine of the rest is not under embargo, but the most valuable bottles, exported at prices above 300 euros, yes, although it has not been enough to stop the flow of wine wines on the tables of restaurants in the Russian capital, thanks to triangulations with other countries, fictitious prices and complicity of some European companies. That said, Italian wine is registering a significant growth of +12.37%, to 151.7 million euros, with sparkling wines - Russia is a historical reference point for Asti sparkling wines - registering +27.8%, to 80 million euros, more than half of the entire wine import.

Moving overseas, the march of the United States, the world’s leading wine market, in terms of overall consumption and imports, continues apace: here, Italian wine arrived at 1.73 billion euros in shipments (+8.8%), with an increasingly significant sparkling share of 487 million euros (+13%). Canada’s market is still strong, exceeding 401 million euros in imports in the first 11 months of 2022 (+13.2%), with sparkling wines playing a smaller but still relevant role, with the value arriving at 57.5 million euros (+22.3%).

Finally, the countries of Asia, starting with that sleeping giant of China, on which hopes and forecasts of growth are returning as the economy rebounds, but in the meantime the figures for the first 11 months of 2022 remain negative: 102.3 million euros of Italian wine imported (-11.8%). Still on negative ground are South Korea, with 68.9 million euros (-1.1%) and Hong Kong, at 25.5 million euros (-1.5%), which, however, have almost sewn up the gap with the same period in 2021. Finally, the “usual” happy note from the Far East, that of Japan, which arrived at more than 184 million euros of imported Italian wine (+30.5%), the only Asian country where sparkling wines manage to have a significant penetration, with a turnover of 99 million euros (+30%).