Italian wine & exports: in the first 2 months of 2021 the USA at -26%

If Italian wine exports in the world, in 2020 of the pandemic, have lost “only” -2.3%, to 6.28 billion euros (Istat data), much of the merit of this result is linked to a sprint start of the year in markets such as the USA, at the time growing in double digits over 2019 due to the rush of importers and distributors to stock up on wine for fear of duties. Looking at the data for the beginning of 2021, however, hope is all placed in the second half of the year when, hopefully, at least part of the world will be definitively out of the pandemic, such as the US itself. Because Nomisma Wine Monitor data on the first two months of Italian wine exports to the main non-EU countries, illustrated at the “Vivite” talk organized by the Alliance of Cooperatives by Danis Pantini, show a -26.1% drop in value for the United States, which remains by far the most important market (1.4 billion euros in 2020).
A figure that in itself makes one tremble, but that should also be read in light of the exceptional nature of the beginning of 2020, as mentioned, “drugged” by the race to stockpile, and the beginning of 2021 in which even the States were essentially still paralyzed by a pandemic from which they are emerging, thanks to a powerful and rapid vaccination campaign. And it is at least a little comforting to compare the 2021 figure with that of the relative 2019 period, a “normal” year, which tells of a +4%.
Among the most important third country markets, however, the good start of Canada is comforting (+4.6% in the first two months of 2021 compared with 2020), as is that of China, up 12.7%. Japan is also in positive territory, albeit by a small 0.9%, as are Australia (+15.3%) and Brazil (+18%), while the percentage increase, albeit from much smaller values, in South Korea (+78.9%) is impressive. On the other hand, countries such as Switzerland (-5.8%) and Norway (-12.8%) were decidedly negative.