sales up 21%, three years of double-digit growth – Corriere.it

The race for Brunello di Montalcino does not stop, even in large-scale distribution in the United States, the first market across the border for the main wine of Tuscany with about a third of total exports. According to data processed by the UIV Observatory based on Nielsen, in the first nine months of this year Brunello was one of the very few green-light tricolor denominations in US retail, with a trend growth in value of almost 23% (+19% change in volume).

In the USA

The figure – the president of the Brunello di Montalcino wine consortium, Fabrizio Bindocci underlined to Benvenuto Brunello – is in line with what was found by our new Price Observatory, which indicates an overall growth on the stars and stripes market of 24%. The performance is even more significant if one looks at the total sales on the large-scale distribution channel of made in Italy wine in the States, which contracted in the period both in terms of volumes (-8%) and values ​​(-5.6%, to one billion euros dollars). The average shelf price also grew in the last quarter (+13%), which exceeded – unique among Italians together with Amarone – the threshold of 70 dollars per bottle.

The export

Brunello di Montalcino is exported to about fifty countries and, after the United States, particularly appreciated in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Northern Europe and then Asia, especially Korea and Vietnam. The bulk of sales in China – explains Bindocci – in Hong Kong and Macao, but for the Chinese market it will take some time before our wine can assert itself, both due to cultural problems and the difficulty of the Chinese to assimilate wine. Again according to the Consortium Observatory, overall sales (Italy + abroad) in the first nine months rose by 21.5% in value and +14% in volume. The national market (+31% in value) is worth a third.

Sales close to 250 million in 2022

Overall, in the first 9 months of this year almost seven million bottles of Brunello di Montalcino were sold among the products of “Annata”, “Vigna” and “Riserva”, the latter protagonist of a very strong increase on 2021. The projection over the twelve months of 2022 leads to a total value of Brunello sales close to 250 million euros. To understand the state of well-being of our denomination – underlines Bindocci – we closed 2020 with +17% and 2021 with +28%, the double-digit positive trend continues also in 2022 with the 2017 vintage. Therefore, the third year double-digit growth.

Welcome Brunello 2018

Next year the 2018 will be on the market, just presented at the Welcome Brunello event which ended on 21 November with almost two thousand participants, over 300 labels from 137 wineries and nine days of tastings in Montalcino (Siena), London, Los Angeles, New York and Toronto. What will happen with sales next year? So far our markets have held up well – concludes Bindocci – but we will have to see what happens in January. I’ve always been optimistic and the glass is always half full. But the difficult economic situation that awaits us in the short and medium term requires us to pay close attention: the International Monetary Fund forecasts a recessionary phase in 2023 for Italy and Germany and also in the USA the recent downward prospects for super-premium products analyzed by Rabobank sound like alarm bells not to be overlooked.