Slowdown for Tuscan wines: in the first 7 months of 2019, all the top Denominations are on a decline

Tuscan wine is one of the strongest Made in Italy wine brands in the world, with its many territories deeply immersed in history, and the quality of its wines, it is universally renowned. And yet, it seems that nobody is enjoying “production revenues” in this increasingly complicated and difficult world market. Even the “Grand Duchy” wine, which in 2018 exported close to 980 million euros (ISTAT source) as data from WineNews shows sales of its denominations losing -3.7% between January and July 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 (this is considering an indicative parameter like the number of labels producers have requested, ed.). The trend is the same all over, though there are some differences. The only top red wine denomination that has seen its sales increase in 2019 is the most “international” of them all, i.e., Bolgheri, which, thanks to the global success of the Bordeaux blend, has registered +16%. Chianti Classico is basically stable, Chianti is holding its own (-3%), and so are Maremma Toscana (-5%), Morellino di Scansano (-6%) and Nobile di Montepulciano (-7%, while Rosso di Montepulciano has lost only -1%).
Brunello di Montalcino is also on a downturn, at -27%, and Rosso di Montalcino -15%. This trend of decline is partially because the unfortunate 2014 harvest, which was not excellent quality-wise, has entered the market (many producers did neither a Reserve nor “Vigna”), plus quantities were not abundant, and there were other issues as well. Minus signs have been registered also for Val d'Arno di Sopra (-15%), Montecucco (37%) and Orcia (-54%).
There is, however, a small, positive note from the most important white wine denomination of the Region; that is, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, which marked + 1%.
These numbers are relative to an important part of the year, which need not be a cause for alarm, but, certainly, must be taken into serious consideration for the future.