“Vigneto Italia” has decreased -15% from 2000 to today. Only vineyards in the North-East are growing

Excluding the climatic trends in recent years, an average harvest, in Italy, over the past 5 years has produced around 47 million hectoliters in volume, the vast majority of which have been PDO and PGI wines. It is difficult to say whether this is too much or not, in the changing market where wine consumption is falling sharply, looking at the situation between economy and wars, and perhaps structurally, looking at long-term trends such as growing health concerns. In any case, in France, Australia and California, there are already more or less concrete plans in place to uproot vineyards, and more or less supported by public contributions. While throughout Europe, instead, where almost two-thirds of the world's wine is produced, in Italy that alternates with France as the world’s number one producer in quantity, discussions are starting about this measure, considering definitive and “temporary" uprooting, which all still need to be regulated at the EU level (the regulation on new plantings allows a maximum increase of 1% per year for each member country, ed.). The “Economic situation of the wine sector in Italy in 2024 and needs with respect to future trajectories” report, signed by ISMEA (institute of Services for agro-food markets) and Rete Rurale Nazionale (national rural network) revealed that beyond this, it is a fact that in Italy, from the beginning of the century to today, the total hectares of vineyards have decreased significantly. The decrease is 15%; i.e., from 792.440 hectares in 2000 to 675.135 in 2023. The lowest peak was in 2015, when there were 637.634 hectares, and then they started growing again, at +4.9% over the past 8 years. Looking at the 2000-2023 time frame, all the Regions are at a more or less heavy loss, except for Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige. These regions are among the largest and most successful sparkling and white denominations in the world, namely, Prosecco DOC and Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, among others. They are, in essence, also the stars of the post-2015 recovery.
“The North-East regions that have grown in the invested surface area are Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige. In these three regions, the invested surface area has grown + 37% in the 21st century. These regions, even though they have very different structural characteristics, have benefited from the exceptional international success of the Pinot Grigio varietal and of the Glera denomination sparkling wines”, the report explained.
This fact also explains that among the Regions that showed a decrease in the invested surface area in the period considered, it is possible to identify three distinct groups based on the extent of the reduction in regional potential. The first group is the Regions where the surface area decreased less than the National average, which consists in five regions in the Center-North: Abruzzi (-3.7%), Tuscany (-5.3%), Lombardy (-6.9%), Piedmont (-13.7%) and Emilia-Romagna (-14.3%). “It is a mixed group in terms of production orientation, as two Regions are clearly oriented towards the high range, such as Tuscany and Piedmont, and two regions are oriented towards popular premium productions, such as Abruzzi and Emilia-Romagna”, the report explained. The second group is made up of Regions that have decreased between -15%, on average, and -30%, such as Puglia, Marche, Sardinia, Sicily, Umbria and Valle d’Aosta. The third group includes Regions where vineyard areas have decreased from -32.2% in Campania, -59.2% in Lazio and -66.3% in Liguria, and have decreased more than - 30% also in Molise, Calabria and Basilicata. Each Region, obviously, has different reasons to explain the trend. “On one hand, in Regions such as Liguria and Valle d’Aosta, the main problems are related to high production costs, due to the specific orography of the vineyard areas. There are Regions, instead, where cultivation is easier, but the relationship with the market is challenging. The problem of yield stability in the South is also significant, with growing drought problems”.
The report explained that one of the factors to consider is that “these differentiated dynamics of potential in the various Regions have been possible thanks to a continuous process of transferring vineyard areas between Regions, before modification of the potential control regime, and subsequently, exploiting the possibilities of inter-regional transfer of vineyards, under the new authorization regime. The analysis of inter-regional transfers that took place between 2016 and 2021 highlighted transfers of approximately 9.000 hectares, involving 17 transferring Regional/Provincial administrations, and 14 destination ones, revealing bidirectional flows. However, most of the flows appeared to originate from a few Regions (Sicily, Lazio, Umbria and Puglia), while approximately 90% of this flow was directed towards Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia”.
Besides the changing “geography” of the vineyard-Italy (which is further changing internally, since within the same denominations, in many cases, those who can, are moving the vineyards to cooler and higher altitude areas to cope with global warming, ed.), it’s structure is also changing. The average company surface area has grown from 1 to 3 hectares, while ownership is more and more concentrated, and in fact, 20% of the Italian vineyard is managed by companies that have vineyard surface areas of more than 20 hectares. Moreover, there has been a growing move towards denomination production, so much so that areas claimed as DOC or DOCG have increased from 250.000 hectares in 2000 to more than 400.000 hectares in 2020. Furthermore, half of the Italian vineyards have carried out vineyard restructuring or reconversion interventions, thanks to European public funding from the CMO (common market organization). The procedures have covered more than 330.000 hectares of vineyards, which means that some Regions have been able to restructure or reconvert over half of their vineyards, such as Sicily (70%), Emilia-Romagna (61%), Tuscany (52%) and Lombardy (51%).