ISMEA report on Italian wine: turnover 13.8 billion euros; exports worth 7.8 billion euros; production down

The Italian wine industry (that will be meeting at Vinitaly, from April 13th to 17th, in Verona, which is the largest trade fair in the sector celebrating one of Italy’s symbolic products, ed.), is going through a moment of “transition” and has many challenges ahead to face. At the same time, though, it can count on solid foundations as it has an invaluable wealth of landscape, history, culture, identity as well as numbers, on its side. Viticulture in Italy is solid and concrete; it is an economic driving force that boosts employment and brings wealth. Numbers are part of the ISMEA (institution of services for agri-food markets) report, “L’Italia del vino” (March 2024), which has provided a detailed picture of the sector in 2023. The total turnover was 13.8 billion euros, representing 10% of the entire agri-food turnover. The export value dropped to 21.4 million hectoliters (-1%) and 7.8 billion euros (-0.8%) in value while imports were growing at 2 million hectoliters (+1%) and there was a surge in value to 574 million euros (+22%). All of these numbers are thanks to the 675.000 hectares of vineyards and the 33.000 wineries (over 55% are wine cooperatives). 2023 is a year which will also be remembered for scarce production, as the figure 38 million hectoliters, i.e., -23.2% less compared to 2022, confirmed. However, Italy also boasts a record heritage of 527 PDO and PGI designations (77 DOCG, 332 DOC, 118 TGI). Production has seen a sharp decline, but over the past few years IG wines and whites have grown compared to reds, while rosés reached +3%. The success of white wines is due to the performance of sparkling wines in 2023 that reached 7 million hectoliters, and 18% share of the National production. The vineyard areas also increased, reaching 675.136 hectare. The Italian vineyard is 65% PDO, 14% PGI and 21% table and varietal. Forty-six percent of the total, that is, 311.000 hectares, benefited from the OCM Restructuring and Reconversion measure.
The focus on exports showed growth in value for PDO wines (5.2 billion euros, +0.4%), which therefore have the most significant share, ahead of PGIs (1.67 billion, -3.5%). However, both decreased in value, -3.2% (10.8 million liters), and -2.2% (5.2 million liters) respectively. Over the past ten years, the ISMEA report emphasized, exports have continually grown in value (+56% in ten years), while volumes have remained essentially constant. What did change, though, was the exports “basket”, which grew from 35% to 51% in volume, while the share grew from 52% to 67% in value. These results are attributed, ISMEA explained, also to the Promotion measure of the Wine CMO (current sectoral intervention of the PSP). In 2023, overall consumption was just below 22 million hectoliters (-2%), and per capita consumption was 37 liters.