Italian wine suffers since restaurants closed. There is consolation in large-scale distribution

Wine, like many other product chains, has been hit hard in the world crisis linked to coronavirus. Even though the volume in restaurants is just over 30% of the wine consumed in Italy, it is the channel that generates the most in added value, and now they have been closed. However, the wine sector, at least partially, can console itself with the large-scale distribution. Wine, like most other foods has grown significantly in the market baskets of the millions of Italians under forced quarantine. This aspect should not be underestimated, as Italians have been forced to return en masse to eat both lunch and dinner at home, compared to “normal” daily life, when many people would have eaten lunch outside of home.
WineNews recently interviewed many wine entrepreneurs who predicted this trend at the beginning of the crisis and today the numbers confirm the trend. The ADM-Association of Modern Distribution and IRI INFOSCAN survey, monitoring 27.000 retail outlets, revealed that wine sales registered a 6.8% jump, in a single week, from March 2nd to 8th, which thanks to PDO wines (+11.9%), more than to wines with no denomination or geographical indication (+3.9%).
Wine productions of famous denominations, as well as the most popular wine names, seem to prevail in shopping baskets while instead, people do not have the time to look for territories or TGI wines. “In these uncertain times”, the IRI INFOSCAN account director Virgilio Romano explained to the Ansa agency, “people pay less attention to a low priced bottle of wine and more to the certainty of the classics, and also look for the most famous wines and territories”.
Moreover, now that aperitifs, convivial moments and happy hours have been banned, “sparkling wines”, Romano continued, “have registered fluctuating sales, but growth in double figures anyway, and in the positive. Up until February 23rd sales grew +17.6%, then fell sharply to 5.7% while the following week recovered to 11.7%. Therefore, the growth rate is still high”.
Mass consumer online sales instead are booming. According to the IRI Ecommerce panel data, “click & collect is growing rapidly, reaching over 300%, and has grown even more during the last three weeks of this health emergency. However, the online retail chains and Amazon brands seem to be having difficulty increasing home deliveries, due to the logistics in responding to this boom, even though Amazon is prioritizing essential deliveries, including agri-food”. Meanwhile, Champagne plummeted to -53.2%.