Cantina Valle Isarco, Kerner has grown 150% in ten years
The mountain white is winning new consumers even at a time when the cooperative is consolidating past results with a slight drop in overall sales.
Key points
Over the past ten years, Cantina Valle Isarco has recorded average growth rates of between 6 and 8%, thanks in part to the momentum of the Kerner, a typical South Tyrolean white wine that is increasingly moving out of the niche and has jumped 150% since 2014. And if we look at Kerner alone - which accounts for about a quarter of the volumes of the cooperative, whose 150 hectares of mountain vineyards cultivated by 135 members produce 95% white wines - even the past year has seen growth. However, Kellerei Eisacktal (the name of the winery in German) is not immune to the crisis and the estimates for the year-end are a drop of 2%, for a production turnover of around 7.6 million.
Physiological Consolidation
«È un risultato che va letto guardando ai livelli record che abbiamo raggiunto gli scorsi anni – precisa il direttore generale Armin Gratl –. Nel 2014 vendevamo 80mila bottiglie di Kerner classico e 15mila bottiglie di Kerner Aristos (il nome della linea superiore che caratterizza anche altri vini, ndr). Nel 2024 il Classico ha raggiunto 200mila bottiglie (+150%) e l’Aristos 45mila bottiglie (+200%). Il trend di crescita del Kerner non riguarda solo noi, ma crediamo come nessun altro in questa varietà, tanto da aver fatto anche nuovi impianti a Kerner negli ultimi anni. Ora però non è il momento di allargare le vigne, ma di consolidare i risultati ottenuti e aumentare i margini sulle bottiglie più che il loro numero, anche se lo spazio per crescere anche in quantità non manca e dalle attuali 950mila vogliamo andare decisamente sopra il milione di bottiglie».
But the price lists, at least for the time being, will not be touched, nor will the new high-end wines, such as the Adamantis cuvée or the Granit360, aged in granite, have a substantial (at least direct) impact on the budget. What will have to change, according to Gratl's strategy, is the composition of the offer: if now the classic line represents 85% and Aristos 15%, in 3-5 years the latter will have to cover between 25 and 30% of the range.
Growth abroad? There is still a lot of Italy to conquer
Other avenues for growth? 'On exports we have only started to work well in recent years and it takes time to see the results. Now it covers a quota of 15%, half of which is in the USA, where tariffs will certainly not help us. The goal,' says Gratl, 'is to reach 20-25% in the coming years.
But there is also a lot of ground to be made up in Italy: 'The slowdown has come from South Tyrol, where more than half of the production still remains, but in other parts of Italy where we were absent or not very present, we have instead grown and there is still room to establish ourselves. But it is a long and not easy task: the drop in consumption has been going on for some time, in recent years it has only become more evident. Of course this does not mean that consumers are disappearing and we can therefore still conquer spaces, but we certainly can no longer think only in terms of quantity,' reasons Gratl.
