THE DROP IN WINE CONSUMPTION IN ITALY SEES NO END, ACCORDING TO THE LATEST REPORT ON 2014 ISTAT DATA, ANALYZED BY ITALIAN WINE UNION, UIV. 27.5 MILLION CONSUMERS, HALF A MILLION LESS THAN 2013

It seems there is no end to the decline in wine consumption in Italy, according to the latest 2014 Istat data, analyzed by the Italian Wine Union. There are 27.5 million people that drink wine, half a million less than in 2013, and the percentage of the total population fell from 51.6% to 50.5%. There are more occasional than daily consumers: 14 million against 13.5, but while a year ago occasional consumers were growing and exceeding daily consumers, in 2014 both categories dropped – 400.000 fewer regular consumers and 100.000 fewer occasional.

The breakdown by type of consumer indicates a further down slide of regular drinkers, or the so-called "perfect consumers" (those who stay within the WHO recommendations; just to be clear, 2 glasses per day), from 9.8 to 9.4 million.
Those who instead drink between 3 glasses and half a liter of wine grew to 2.8 million (100.000 more consumers). Those, instead, who exceed a recommendable consumption quantities; that is, over half a liter a day, have also gone down by 100.000 consumers.
Narrowing the data to daily users, and focusing on age, there has been a reduction in the last year of both the younger generation (18-34 years old), and the so-called productive group, from 35 to 54 years. The next group, up to 65 is also on a downslide, while the only group that grew were the over 65s (+100.000), obviously due to the progressive aging of the population. Daily consumers are stable in the group 35-44 and instead there has been a sharp reduction in the youngest group(18-34 years).

Finally, a note on genders. The downslide in consumption was equal in both males and females with year over year decreases of 200.000 consumers.