Italian wine and exports: February 2025 figure remains positive but the slowdown on January is clear

As widely expected, after January’s sprint start, the run of Italian wine exports in February 2025 brakes sharply, although remaining in positive territory at least in value, but not in volume. Istat data updated today and analyzed by WineNews, speak of €1.19 billion worldwide, up +3.6% on the first 2 months of 2024 (an increase halved compared to January’s +7.5%, ed.), while volumes drop, to 316,809,270 liters (-1.7%). Something better than average do sparkling wines, at 322 million (+4.5%) for 74.6 million liters (+3.3%), but again with a slowing growth trend.
Looking at individual markets, the U.S. is confirmed as a driver, with a figure evidently still affected by the desire to anticipate duties, which then arrived in April, with +20.5% (in line with January’s +19.3%), for 335.7 million euros, accompanied by an increase in quantity of +8.2%, to 57.8 million liters. It remains up, but slows from the beginning of the year, in Germany, at €179 million (+2.4%), accompanied, however, by an almost identical decline in volume (-2.24%, to 77.1 million liters), while it veers into slight decline in the United Kingdom, which makes -1.4% in value, to €107.2 million, and -1.2% in volume, to 34.1 million liters (-1.2%). Slowing, but remaining strong, is also growth in Canada, which does +14.6% in value, to 62.3 million euros, and Switzerland also remains in the positive, with 59.7 million euros (+1.5%). Remaining in Europe, it basically zeroes out the growth of Italian wine imports in France, at 40.8 million euros (+0.9%), while Belgium grows +2.2% (which, however, was at +13.1% in January on January), at 35.9 million euros.
The East is bad: after a growing start Japan brakes sharply, stopping at 26.7 million euros (-6.9%), while China’s deep red continues, at 9.3 million euros (-27%). And the collapse of Russia also continues, at -54.7% in value, to the tune of 20 million euros, with a sharp slowdown in volume as well, at -68%, to the tune of 5.1 million liters.
Numbers that tell a complex picture for the Italian wine market, as has been the case for some time now, and as also confirmed by cellar stocks, which remain high, at just under 50 million hectoliters as of April 30, 2025 (-0.5% on 2024), according to the latest “Cantina Italia” report, while waiting to read the data on the first four months of the year, which will be updated in June, to see if there will be a further slowdown, or if Italian wine will be able to give a new impetus on world markets.