Reopenings are not enough to stop the collapse of out-of-home consumption: wine at -37% in 2021

Since Monday, Italy in the yellow zone has eased restrictions on consumption outside the home, with bars and restaurants returning to welcome customers at the table, but only in outdoor areas. An uinauspicious beginning in a large part of the country due to a weather that is anything but compliant, from which the consumption of wine and spirits will also restart. It will not be, however, an overwhelming recovery, on the contrary. According to the estimates of the analysis company TradeLab for Federvini, not even the probable and long-awaited return of international tourism in summer will be enough to reverse the trend. 2021 will close, according to forecasts, with a drop in out-of-home wine consumption of -37% and -41% of spirits, compared to the average of recent pre-Covid years.
In general, according to TradeLab’s analysis, taking into account the number of venues with outdoor seating,the different internal versus external production capacity and an estimate of the number of days of bad weather, for the spring months the forecasts remain very severe. On the other hand, for the summer months (July-September) a good result is expected, in line with or better than last year, and a gradual return of foreign tourists is expected. In the last quarter of the year an improvement is forecast for the spirits sector, assuming the absence of restrictions on consumption even in the evening (given the good performance of the vaccination campaign), although the ban on opening discos is still in place.
As for single regions, the biggest decrease, as for wine consumptions away from home, also because of the determinant role of the climate variable, will be in Trentino Alto Adige (-46,8%), but it will not go well either in Umbria (41,9%), Valle d’Aosta (41,2%), Tuscany (-40,5%), Veneto (-39,4%), Lombardy (-38,3%) and Piedmont (-38,2%). Slightly better, but still with significant losses, are Liguria (37,5%), Friuli Venezia Giulia (-36,5%), Marche (-36,5%), Sicily (-35,5%), Lazio (-34,3%), Abruzzo (-34%), Campania (-30,1%) and Calabria (-29%). Finally, the four Regions where, in 2021, wine consumption will mark the lowest drop compared to the averages of the last years: Sardinia (-27,3%), Molise (-26%), Basilicata (-21%) and Apulia (-19,1%).