Wine goes down in Italian off-trade: first trimester 2025 sales at 732.2 million euros (-1.5%)

A start with the pulled handbrake. First trimester (January-March) 2025 in difficulty in Italian off-trade channel, which sums overall sales for 732.2 million euros (-1.5% in value), and a quantity of 1.8 million hectoliters (-3.9%) for an increasing price per liter touching 4 euros (+2.5%). Sparkling wines confirm the trend which is underway since time, and register better performances compared to still wines, and a certain hold in terms of value, but the sector, at a general level, shows struggle signals. After a 2024 which closed in name of stagnation, Report Wine Monitor by Nomisma, carried out basing on NielsenIQ data, confirms, for the first trimester 2025, the difficulties that wine market is living in Italian off-trade channel, and, therefore, regarding iper, super, “superette” (small free service), discount, e-commerce, cash & carry. The total of sales of still & sparkling wines talks about 564.72 million euros in value (-2.1%), and 1.56 million hectoliters (-4.3%) with a price per liter which arrived at 3.6 euros (+2.3%) in the first trimester 2025. All sale channels are dropping, from iper, super, and lsp (-2%) representing the most substantial part (they are worth 425.7 million euros), to discounts (-1.1%), e-commerce (-1.7%), and cash&carry with a “fall” of -9.6%. In “red”, also quantitative data (-4.5% for iper, super, and lsp).
The sales of off trade sparkling wines (January-March 2025) generated 167.4 million euros, and remain in positive ground (+0.5%), but volumes go down to 244.9 (-1.2%) for an average price of 6.84 euros (+1.7%). Here, category iper, super, and lsp shows a growth (+2.4%, is worth 129.2 million euros), but is slightly decreasing (-1%) for volumes. Discount channel down in value (-2.7% even if it holds in volumes at -0.4%) as well as e-commerce (with a heavy -15.3%), and cash&carry (-7%) with these last two dropping in quantity respectively by 5.6%, and 2.9%. According to the report by Nomisma Wine Monitor, “despite the inflation seems, at this point, stabilize on more contained increases compared to recent past, the outlined framework highlights still struggling consumption with overall sales decreasing both in value and volume compared to the same period of the previous year. A decrease which appears to be transversal to the different sale channels with the discount which is reconfirmed to be relatively more resilient compared to other formats, capable of containing the losses in value and volume. Cash & Carry, following what highlighted in 2024, appears to be the channel which is struggling the most, highlighting strong decreases both in value (-8.5%) and volume (-9.4%) attesting to a still unstable out-of-home demand”.
Regarding category analyses, the most important losses interested the sales of still and sparkling wines which continue their phase of weakness, and, explains the focus, “after record performances of previous years, the ongoing of sparkling wines appears to be less shiny of what a first reading of data suggests with the sector which closes the trimester with a light value growth in front of a contained contraction of sold quantities (-1.2%). However, it is necessary to underline how this result is influenced by the methodology of calculation of the first trimester (with beginning on 30/12/2024, and end on 30/03/2025) which - compared to the corresponding 2024 – includes the sales linked to New Year’s Eve, crucial period for sparkling wine consumption. It is necessary to consider that, to partially offset this effect, differently from the last year, first trimester 2025 didn’t benefit the sales linked to Easter, which, in 2024, felt at the end of March. Overall, balancing the two factors, the result of sparkling wines results to be anyway less dynamic compared to waiting highlighting weakening signals of the demand which will need to be monitored attentively in the upcoming months”. Regarding organic wine, 2025 confirms the phase of difficulty, which was already highlighted in 2024. Regarding performances and trends of various distributional formats, report Wine Monitor by Nomisma detects that, for iper, super, and superette (lsp) ,in the first trimester 2025, in front of an overall decrease by about 4 percentage points in value, the accumulated sales of wine in this distributional formats dropped by 4% in volume, with the worst performances registered by still and sparkling wines. Among the most penalized categories, red and sparkling wines continue to suffer, as well as Pdo denomination wines, to which the higher capacity of holding of Pgisacts as counterbalance. Relatively better results are observed for sparkling wines.
Discount chapter. Here, the first three months of 2025 reconfirm the resilience of the sector, which despite with more difficulties compared to previous years, explains the report, appears to be capable of softening the hits by other sale channels. Still&sparkling wines open 2025 with a loss of about one percentage point in volume, and almost three points in value but with a good ongoing shown by white and rosé wines, and, coherently with what observed for Modern Distribution, from the sector of Pgis. Regarding sparkling wines, a higher hold of volumes is observed (which are characterized for a slight contraction), which, however, doesn’t manage to compensate the decrease of average prices determining a decrease in value of almost 3 percentage points. Regarding e-commerce channel, “after record performances of previous years – says the report – the process of reshaping of online sales of wines of Nielsen-supply chains, general and specialized operators continues. Despite the reduction of average prices, even if dropping, remain higher than those of other channels, e-commerce sales struggle to find impulse: sparkling wines register the most serious losses with decreases close to 6 percentage points in volumes, and double digit in value. Still & sparkling wine decreases are more contained with encouraging signals emerging for white wines whose sales are close to overcome those of red wines”.
In the end, following a negative 2024, concludes the report, the sales in cash & carry channel continue their declining phase both in value and volume. Decreases embrace both sparkling wines, and, in a still more marked way, still and sparkling wines with transversal drops to the different categories highlighting the structural fragilities of proxy channel of restoration, and public services.