Uk, the first destination for Italian sparkling wines and the third market for packaged wines

The British market is one of the most important for Italian wines, representing the first country of destination for sparkling wines (30% of total exports) and the third, after the USA and Germany, for bottled wines (9% of total). A fundamental outlet, from which important volumes pass through for different countries, but also an increasingly complex goal, where competition is very high, the uncertainty on commercial relations between London and Brussels after Brexit leads Great Britain closer to Commonwealth countries, and the growth of domestic production starts to be more significant, given that England and Wales, in 2018, touched 15.6 million bottles, beating the previous record of 2014 (6.3 million bottles). Italy, however, cannot afford to go backward, because the turnover of Italian wines in the UK, as the latest analysis by Ismea points out, reached 827 million euros in 2018 (+1.9% on 2017), equal to 13% of total exports of Italian wine. 80% of shipments start from the wineries of Veneto, Piedmont, Trentino Alto Adige, Tuscany, and Lombardy, where bottled wine still represents 44% of British imports of the category, and bubbles, driven by Prosecco, more than 50%.