Still wines for lunch and dinner, while bubbles dominate aperitifs. Italians and wine away from home

The Trade Lab and Italian wine federation, Federvini analysis revealed that Italians drink wine outside the home primarily in medium to high quality restaurants, where prices for a meal start from 30 euros each, upwards. Italians drink still wines for the most part at lunch and dinner, while bubbles dominate at evening aperitifs. The out-of-home wine business yielded 93 billion euros in 2022, and is looking to reach 99 billion euros in 2023. The merit for such high expectations is the return in full force to overflowing of International tourism, giving a positive moment to this fundamental segment, with its cultural, convivial and experiential values.
In 2022, on-trade turnover grew + 33%, while regarding alcoholic beverages, the best performance in percentage terms is still the category of spirits (+88%), followed by alcoholic cocktails (+32%), and then bitters and after dinner liqueurs, (+24%), wine (+24%) and bubbles (21%). 1.47 billion wines and spirits were consumed in Italy at lunches, dinners, and aperitifs in day time wine bars and nightclubs, in 2022, up +28% compared to 2021. Eight hundred million were wines (40%) and sparkling wines (15%). Wine performed the very best at the evening aperitif, but the biggest contributions to growth came from lunch and dinner in medium to high-end restaurants.
Outside the home, people drink wine at lunch as well as at dinner in 40% of cases, while bubbles are the highlight at the evening aperitif, at 30%, followed by dinner (23%) and lunch (16%). Drinking wine is still mostly concentrated in restaurants, 63%. where on average people spend 30 euros each and this same channel attracts 32% of bubbles consumption. Another significant channel where bubbles are heavily consumed is in bars account for 53% of the channel between daytime and evening. The most comforting fact is recovering International tourism and the Italians’ desire to rediscover serenity and conviviality. The Trade Lab estimates indicate further growth generally in the eating out market in 2023, which should reach 100 billion euros. The growth will obviously also benefit wine, especially higher-end wines, the ones that were the most damaged during the Covid era.
“The out of home market has been growing at interesting rates, and even in the first quarter of 2023”, Bruna Boroni (Trade Lab) explained to WineNews, “because it would seem that Italians are no longer willing to give up the pleasure and the moment of leisure one lives outside the home. Therefore, perhaps one saves money on something for the home, in order to have a bigger budget for going out”. Because when one goes out to a bar or restaurant, it is often not just simply to feed oneself, but rather to gratify oneself. “The people who consume away from home are, in general, looking first of all for experience, and wine”, Boroni explained, “is a product linked to experience, plus it is a product linked to the territory, which has many stories to tell. It is culturally close to our experiences, and therefore Italians look to complete the out-of-home experience in wine”.
Wine, however, besides dealing with the country’s not brilliant economic performance, has to deal with many competitors. “Competition depends mainly on the occasion of consuming . At lunchtime, for instance, water and carbonated drinks are consumed, but wine is very important at all the business and leisure lunches. Instead, at dinner, beer is often in “synergy” with pizza, and is an extremely strong competitor. At aperitif time, however, wine has to fight against the world of bitters and spirits drunk neat. The trend is growing, though, and thanks mainly to the foreign tourists that have returned, we definitely believe that the eating out market in 2023 could reach 99 billion euros, and wine will also get a substantial boost from this category.