The world wine trade, between rises and ruinous falls: the crisis of 2008 worse than Covid

The drama, first of all health and social, then economic and productive, of 2020, has left deep marks even on the world of wine, which closed the year with a volume of business, worldwide, of 34.8 billion euros, as told by the latest report of “Wine in figures” signed by Corriere Vinicolo-Uiv. The drop, compared to 2019, is sharp: -4.9%, for an absolute loss of 1.8 billion dollars. Blame the pandemic, blame Covid-19, there is no doubt, but also the result of a decline that had already begun in the previous year, when the world wine trade had a turnover of 36.6 billion euros, 3.2% less than 2018, a record year with a peak of 37.8 billion euros. Widening the analysis further, to the last 10 years, the collapse of 2020 comes out decidedly downsized. In the period 2016-2020, in fact, the world wine trade grew at the rate of 1.5% per year, after the decline at an average rate of 1% per year accumulated in the five-year period 2011-2015, which experienced a very difficult moment between 2014 and 2015, when turnover went from 35.6 to 32.5 billion euros, equal to a -8.7%. And it was still not the worst figure since 2003. The financial crisis that started in the United States and hit Europe and the rest of the world, between 2008 and 2009, in fact, translated into a collapse for the wine business as well. It went from a turnover of 30.9 billion euros in 2008 to 26.9 billion euros in 2009 (-12.9%), a plunge from which the sector was able to recover pretty quickly. In 2010 growth was 7.1%, in 2011 even 17.4%, reaching 33.8 billion euros, well above the figure recorded in 2008. This is the framework - described by WineNews - within which Italian wine moves, which, as far as still bottled wine is concerned, has experienced, over the long term, an evolution in line with the general figure in the period 2011-2015 (-1.3%), but decidedly better in the five-year period 2016-2020 (+3.3%), closing 2020 at a quota of 5.01 billion dollars of exports, even growing on 2019 (+1.2%). Sparkling wines did better, thanks to Prosecco, which grew between 2011 and 2015 at an average of +9.4% per year and +6.2% in the following five-year period. The result is that if in 2010 the turnover of Italian bubbles was just 590 million euros, in 2020 it was 1.68 billion euros, down by -5.1%. 2021 already shows signs of recovery, even compared to 2019, confirming what is an intrinsic quality of the whole economy, but of wine a little more: resilience.