Wine, too much production. Frescobaldi: 'Vineyard yields down'

"Let's get it over with this story of Italy's productive supremacy in wine. Consumption is falling, in Italy and abroad. The production leadership is not a primacy, but a jinx. We have more than 40 million hectolitres of wine in stock and if the next harvest is average with about 50 million hectolitres, we will have about 90 million hectolitres of product available at the end of the year. A monstrous supply that risks depressing prices. There is really nothing to rejoice about'. The (reconfirmed) president of the Italian Wine Union, Lamberto Frescobaldi, does not hide the difficulties of the moment. US tariffs are certainly a problem, but not the only one for Italian wine. A driving sector of the Made in Italy agri-food industry that is now (like so many other crises in the past) facing a new phase of difficulty. Consumption is in constant decline, the younger generations prefer other types of beverages, new consumption styles are emerging that favour whites and sparkling wines and penalise red wines (the lynchpin of the Made in Italy offer). Not to mention the increasingly frequent campaigns to demonise alcoholic beverages that do not distinguish moderate consumption from abuse and end up penalising even a product as rooted in western culture as wine.

'We need to take corrective action,' explained Frescobaldi, 'and update the Testo Unico del Vino. A 2016 law that after less than ten years needs to be adapted to a profoundly changed scenario. We need to tighten the production mesh, so reduce the yields per hectare starting with table wines but also in DOC wines. We must reduce reclassifications and redundancies, bring forward the dates for production declarations. In short, eliminate all those flexibilities that encourage overproduction that we then fail to place on the market. And we must review the DOC system. In Italy we have more than 520 DOC, DOCG and IGT wines, but the top 20 make 80% of the turnover. It is useless to have a label for every row of vines if consumers do not even know which area of the country that wine comes from. These are recognitions that exist only on paper and do not help Italian wine sales'.

"The government is close to a product that is an Italian excellence in the world and to a supply chain that is strategic for our country," said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. "With the new EU wine package and the new CAP, tools will be introduced to better respond to market demands.

'I remain convinced that depression is not helpful,' commented the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida. 'There are worrying aspects but also opportunities in the data. Ismea forecasts a trend growth of up to +13% for wine this year. The enemy is the scaremongering and criminalisation of the product taking place in some countries, which we must counter with positive communication. And we must work on new markets as we are doing with Veronafiere and Ice and international agreements. Lastly, a firm 'no' to grubbing-up, the road taken for example by France. Vineyards guarantee a protection of territories that we cannot give up,' he said.