Nomisma, Italian PDO and PGI wine exports exceed 5 billion euros: Prosecco is the “king”

It has not been an easy year for wine, internationally, amidst consumption crises, weather conditions that undermined production and markets that did not take off, Asia first and foremost. Yet between ups and downs, Italy, on the whole, has held up, as WineNews also reported recently. Succeeding, in particular, in closing 2023 with a hold on the export front of packaged PDO wines, surpassing the quota of 5.1 billion euros (+0.3% on the previous year). However, volumes, amounting to 1.3 million hectoliters, suffer a -3.8% contraction on 2022. This result allows Italy to maintain the second place in Europe among the main exporters of PDO wines, after France and before Spain. In light of the negative performance of these two countries, Italy thus lengthens the gap over the third leading exporter and shortens the gap over the first, although the distance with France (overall declining, with all the main denominations in great difficulty) still remains wide (4.7 billion euros). This is the main evidence that emerges from the Report that Nomisma Wine Monitor, the observatory dedicated to the wine market, created with the aim of helping companies and institutions in the Italian wine industry to correctly interpret market dynamics, has dedicated to the export of Italian PDO wines in 2023. On the value front, the average export price for Italian wines also grows, reaching 4.99 euros per liter (+4.3% compared to 2022); leading the ranking in terms of price are mainly the red wines of Piedmont and Tuscany, while in the last places are the sparkling PDO wines (within which Lambrusco is included) and the still whites of Veneto. Prosecco remains by far the most exported Italian PDO wine in the world, with a total value approaching 1.7 billion euros. In contrast to the negative performance of the U.S., the main destination market, the U.K. and France performed well, with the latter market showing a 31.2% increase in value purchases of Prosecco over 2022. With the exception of Canada and the U.S., exports of the leading “made in Italy” sparkling wine saw growth across the board in all the main destination markets, with double-digit value increases in Poland, Austria and Sweden. The average export price is also on the rise. “On the wave of the worldwide drop in red wine consumption, most Italian PDO still wines in the category also suffered, reaching declines of more than 10% in the case of Veneto reds”, pointed out Denis Pantini, head of Wine Monitor. Also declining but with smaller percentages were the PDO reds from Tuscany and Piedmont, while whites from Sicily, Trentino Alto Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia closed 2023 exports in a positive way.