ISTAT: Italy’s wine exports depict a two-speed country

Italian wine on foreign markets has started out quite well in 2019, marking, as the latest Italian statistics association, ISTAT data report revealed, shipments were up 3.8% in the first quarter of the year, over the same period in 2018, at 1.43 billion euros. However, the numbers mirror a two-speed sector, Center-North Italy is in positive territory and instead Southern Italy is losing ground, except for Sicily. The driving force, as always, is the Veneto Region, counting 504 million euros in export share, up 4.7%, and propelled, as one can easily imagine, by the performance of Prosecco. Following is the Piedmont Region’s rather weighty progress, as it registered +7.8% and reached 232 million euros in shipments, somewhat more than Tuscany, whose wine export is worth 220 million euros, substantially stable compared to the first three months of 2018 (+ 0.7%). Trentino Alto Adige that can count on the support of its neighboring markets Germany and Austria is confirmed at the fourth Region in terms of export share, counting 128 million euros (+ 3.9%). Then comes Emilia Romagna, which at 75 million euros of wine shipped across the border and + 8.2% growth has accomplished one of the most remarkable performances of all the Italian Regions. Lombardy registered 68.8 million euros in wine exports (+1.6%), and Abruzzi, at quite a distance, at 45 million euros of wine shipped (+4.1%). As we mentioned above, the painful points come from the South, where practically all the Regions have gone down in their shares, except for Sicily alone, which grew +2.7%, to 34.3 million euros. The Apulia region went down 4.2%, stopping at 36.6 million euros, but Campania did not do better, down 4.5% to 11.5 million euros, while Sardinia lost 2.2%, for 5.6 million euros, and Calabria even more, 6.4%, closing at 1.17 million euros.