Shipments of Italian wine in the period January-August 2021 will be close to €4.5 billion

Shipments of Italian wine around the world in the period January-August 2021 will be close to 4.5 billion euros (4.496 billion to be precise), an increase of +15.5% on the same period in 2020 and, above all, +12.2% compared to 2019, a very positive year for the Italian wine trade. Despite the boom in costs that continues to weigh on the entire supply chain, from energy to materials, including transport, the first alarm bell of an inflationary dynamic with which consumers will necessarily have to reckon, the race of Italian wine on markets around the world has not stopped, taking 2019 as a reference, Great Britain, where there are still many knots to unravel in the long path of Brexit, and Japan, which is paying the price for the slowdown in its economy in the third quarter of the year, including a drop in industrial production, a logistics crisis and a trade balance that shows a deficit of 444 billion yen. Impressive, in a positive sense, is the data coming from the United States, followed closely by Germany, the solid second place for Italian wine exports, with China now firmly back at the levels of 2019, while Canada, South Korea, Russia, the Netherlands and Sweden continue to grow exponentially.

In the WineNews analysis of the latest ISTAT data, in the first 8 months of 2021 Switzerland imported 254 million euros of Italian wine (+9.8% over the same period in 2019 and +12.7% over 2020), France, with 134.9 million euros, instead showed a very slight slowdown over 2019 (-0.6%) but a powerful recovery over 2020 (+13.5%), while 70.4 million euros of Italian wine went to Austria (+6.1% over 2019 and +3.7% over 2020). In Germany, the second-largest export market, Italian wine invoiced 713 million euros (+9.9% compared to 2019 and +6.7% compared to 2020), in the Netherlands Italian wine exports reached 135 million euros (+35% compared to 2019 and +14.4% compared to 2020), on the exact same levels as in Sweden (+14, 4% on 2019 and +11.6% on 2020), with Norway, on the other hand, importing slightly less than in 2020 (-2.2%), i.e. 71.5 million euros of wine from Italy, however much more than in 2019 (+23.7% on 2019), and Russia 79 million euros (+21.5% on 2019 and +38.6% on 2020).

As anticipated, it is the data from the United States that stands out above all others: in just 8 months, the top destination for Italian wine has already amply surpassed the billion euro mark (1.16 billion euros), up on both 2020 (+22.7%) and 2019 (+19.4%). Excellent signals also from Canada, with 241 million euros of wine imported from Italy (+10%compared to 2019 and +12.1% compared to 2020). Japan continues its slow recovery, at 107 million euros (+8.1% on 2020), but still far from the 2019 figures (-14.4%). On the contrary, China, with 81 million euros of Italian wine imports, is exactly at the levels of 2019, and growing strongly on the disastrous 2020 (+58.8%). Finally, South Korea, now an established reality, at 55 million euros (+150% compared to 2019 and +139% compared to 2020), and Hong Kong, the privileged gateway for many Italian fine wines, which imported 19 million euros of wine in the first 8 months of 2021 from Italy (+3.8% on 2019 and +35.7% on 2020).