Italy’s 2023 grape harvest began with a “stockpile harvest” in the cellar

The 2023 grape harvest, which began in recent days between Sicily and Franciacorta, and slowly kicked off all over Italy, and in a decidedly complicated overall scenario, amid estimates of a drop in production due essentially to the effects of Downy mildew, and a market that, both domestically and in exports, does not shine, started with wineries that had a larger stock load compared to 2022 in their cellars.
As of July 31, 2023, in fact, 44.5 million hectoliters of wine (+4.4% over 2022), 3.5 million hectoliters of must (-8%) and 44,519 hectoliters of new wine still in fermentation (-12.9%) were dwelling in the cellar. This is according to the now customary bulletin “Cantina Italia”, prepared by the Central Inspectorate for the Protection of Quality and Fraud Repression (Icqrf), based on data contained in the computerized wine registers. Practically a harvest in the cellar, at least according to Coldiretti’s forecast (among the most optimistic of those issued to date), which predicts wine production in 2023 at around 43 million hectoliters, down 14% from 2022.
Following a well-established trend, the report points out that, more than half of the wine in stock is PDO (53.2%), and 26.6% Igt, with a clear prevalence of reds (53.9% for Denomination wines, 64.1% for geographical indication wines), with the top 20 PDO and Igp wines putting together 58.4% of stocks.
As always, leading the quantitative ranking is Prosecco Doc, with 3.7 million hectoliters (10.4% of total PDO and PGI wines), followed by Igt Puglia (2.1 million hectoliters) by Doc Sicilia (1.4), Igt Salento (1.4), and again by Igt Toscana (1.3), Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (1.3) Igt Terre Siciliane (1.1) and Chianti (1.07 million hectoliters).
A statistical scenario that, in all likelihood, given the pitfalls of the 2023 grape harvest that is now coming into full swing, and which will certainly be anything but generous, looks set to change considerably in the coming months, both at the overall level and in the specific weight of the different appellations.