Italian wine exports continue to grow: +5.6% in value in the first 9 months 2024 compared to 2023

There are still good signs coming for Italian wine exports. In fact, the Italian wine export amounts to 5.9 billion euros in the first 9 months of 2024, up 5.6% on the same period in 2023 and also improving on the last monthly survey, referring to August (+4.6%). Also in positive territory is the result indicating volumes with 1.6 billion liters, +3.4% compared to twelve months ago. A track record fueled more and more by the exploit of sparkling wines that arrived at the end of the third quarter of 2024 at 1.7 billion euros in export value, an improvement of 9.4% over the same period in 2023, with bubbles worth 28.7% of Italian wine exports in the world, and which, at the level of overall country data, mask somewhat the greater difficulties that still wines, reds in the lead, have been facing for some time. This is the picture that comes from Istat data, on the first 9 months of the year, updated today, and analyzed by WineNews. And they are yet another confirmation of a sector that, despite having to deal with the well-known critical issues of these times, continues to maintain the positive sign, worldwide, improving, month by month, its performance. A necessary injection of confidence, always to be welcomed with due caution, given the historical period characterized by international instability, changes in consumption and questions such as, for example, the danger of duties, but demonstrating a sector, that of Italian wine, that is not losing appeal in the world. The main destination countries of Italian wine show, almost all of them, in fact, positive indices in the cumulative comparison referring to the period January-September 2023 and 2024.
The United States is still the No. 1 landing market for Italy: with 1.4 billion euros (+8.4%), a figure that is still growing, it accounts for almost a quarter of Italian wine sales worldwide. And it is precisely in the U.S. that orders could surge in the final part of 2024, to avert, at least initially, the possible problems related to the hypothesis of the promised duties on European products, in 2025, with the return of the newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump. In the continental market, however, Germany is the No. 1 country, with 866.9 million euros (+4.6%), followed by Great Britain, which returns with a positive sign since the last survey, another good news, with 602.5 million euros (+0.1%). Canada is also doing well with 336 million euros and marking a double-digit “leap” (+17.3%). The first negative note comes from Switzerland (288 million euros, -3.2%), while France “runs” again with 231.5 million euros (+2.5%), and with the Netherlands sending, again, interesting signals (177.4 million euros, +6.6%). There is no stopping the “cyclone” Russia, which, with 173.4 million euros, accomplishes a “sparkling” growth, the best of all, coming in at +63.5 percent. There is no repeat, at the moment, of Belgium, which nonetheless comes close to “breaking even” compared to a year ago (161.8 million euros, -0.5%), while comforting news also comes from the Asian continent thanks to Japan, which, in the first 9 months of 2024, imported 146 million euros (+4%), so much so that it surpassed Sweden (144.7 million euros, +2.9%). The Austrian market remained solid at 117.7 million euros (+15.3%), and Denmark also improved at 108.2 million euros (+5.7%). China, on the other hand, continues to be a market that does not “heal,” despite its enormous potential: the descent of Italian wine imports to the country of the Dragon continues, stopping at 62 million euros (-11%), and South Korea goes down, although to a lesser extent (37.1 million euros, -1.7%).
A photograph that, as mentioned, gives some satisfaction, but without giving in to enthusiasm, to the world of Italian wine, waiting for the “sprint” at the end of the year and a 2025 expected with a mixture of confidence, hope and concern, with many variables difficult, at the moment, to predict.