The stock figure in Italy is really worrying, not even a poor harvest like the one that just ended can balance the situation (at what price then?). It is time for the industry, with the support of policy, to plan a strategy that will help the industry get out of this quagmire.
The report no. 9/2023 of the ministry of agriculture opens with a sentence that sounds at the very least alarming: “As of September 30, 2023, there are in Italian wine plants 42.8 million hectoliters of wine (…) compared to September 30, 2022, we observe a value of the inventories higher for wines (+9.1 percent).” Some of it may be from wines that need to age by specification, but the bulk of it is unsold. Some regions, Abruzzo and Puglia in primis, are in trouble, and not even one of the poorest harvest results in recent years seems to be enough to improve things, due to the nationwide spread of peronospera and decidedly unfavorable weather events. In the face of italic endless discussions and inability to make decisions in France, they have just allocated 200 million euros to finance the distillation of surpluses and have flattened I don’t know how many hundreds, if not thousands, of hectares to limit production and support prices.
This is all happening with a side dish that to call worrying is an understatement, with inflation not yet tamed, two wars heavyweight, a general decline in wine consumption, our main export markets at a standstill or in retreat, and a penalizing attitude toward wine coming from the European Union (cancellation of CMO promotional funds is very likely soon, for example). A tragic situation and no real strategy to deal with it.
I wonder if we shouldn’t move quickly, because the near future could be really complicated for Italian wine (not just that unfortunately), and I don’t see initiatives of any kind aimed at least at raising awareness and provide at least as they have just done in France, where, evidently, they demonstrate a lucidity that is completely fugitive here.
