Record wine exports at 8 billion: Prosecco still king of sales

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In 2022 theexport of Italian wine has reached the record figure of 8 billion euros, 12% more than the previous year. The estimates come from the Nomisma Wine Monitor: for Italy it is an undoubted success, even if our country continues to remain far from the records of France, which in 2022 is estimated to have exported wine for 12.5 billion euros, up 12.5% ​​over the previous year.

The reason behind this gap also lies in the ability of the vignerons across the Alps to bring home a higher added value for each bottle: the average export price of our still wines was also 40% lower in 2022. The same difference in level that existed ten years ago, therefore, still it was not filled.

Prosecco is once again the king of foreign markets: between January and September of last year (the latest data available in the Nomisma database), the Venetian bubbles sold in the world amounted to almost 274 million litres, equal to receipts of 1.15 billion euros, moreover an increase compared to the same period of 2021. In second place, but well separated, are the still reds made in Tuscany, which in the first nine months of last year all abroad they grossed 494 million euros. The great Piedmontese reds are third, with 278 million euros, while in fourth place are the still whites of the Veneto, such as Soave or Lugana, which in value have collected 260 million euros even if by volume they would represent the second category of wines Italians most exported abroad. In fifth place, by collection, are still red Veneto wines (218 million euros). Asti spumante, with 107 million euros, is in seventh place in the 2022 export ranking.

On the domestic market, the data provided by NielsenIQ show a decline in wine sales through the large-scale distribution channel for the year just ended. In terms of volume, this is a drop of 6.4%, while in value the decrease remains contained at -1.8%. «There is no doubt that various factors such as inflation, the euro-dollar exchange rate and the economic slowdown have weighed on the trend of exports and sales in the large-scale distribution channel in Italy – explains Denis Pantini, Wine Monitor manager of Nomisma – the same trends underlie but also a shift in consumption in the summer and early autumn towards eating out, driven by the recovery of tourism after the most critical years of the pandemic».

In the world, Italy remains the second country in terms of the export value of its wines. The first, as always, is France, just as third place remains firmly in the hands of Spain, which last year sold bottles for 3 billion euros, up by only 6% compared to the previous year. Fourth is Chile, with wine exports worth 1.9 billion euros, while the United States are only fifth, with 1.4 billion euros, on a par with Australia and slightly above New Zealand (1. 3 billion).