Italian no and low alcohol wines are marketed by American companies. According to Castelletti (UIV), regulatory intervention is urgently needed; our competitors are two years ahead.
For American consumers, they account for 28 percent of total purchases of Italian wine products in the United States, but it is not Prosecco, nor is it Chianti, Pinot grigio or Valpolicella. It’s the low-alcohol products: $651 million in sales in U.S. mass retail and distribution in 2023 for “reds, whites, sparkling wines, flavored products” tricolor classified by NielsenIQ as low-alcohol wines,largely either partially fermented or dealcoholic. Bottles, as well as cans, from 7 degrees down, almost totally unknown in the Belpaese, but increasingly present among U.S. shelves.
Low alcohol Italian wines (low alcohol)
Italian wines or wine-based products sold at an average shelf price of nearly $16 per liter, more than double that of their U.S. counterparts ($7) and even 5 percent higher when compared with the average for traditional tricolor wines.
But there is more. As elaborations by the Observatory of Italian Wine Union (UIV) based on NielsenIQ, while it is true that the vineyard is Italian, the business is in the vast majority of cases the prerogative of companies in the stars and stripes (80 percent of the value of sales), who import the finished and labeled product from the Belpaese and resell it in the U.S. market. A made-in-Italy production for a made-in-U.S. business, with Italian wineries and companies mostly relegated to production and bottling.
A paradox for the wine superpower and Italian style, which also pulls on a category, the “low” category, that is relatively young and – except for the last year – the protagonist of a ride that, thanks to the change of tastes among the country’s various generations and ethnic groups, has led them to be a choice no longer secondary to classic wine.
Italian dealcolati wines (no alcohol)
A paradox, that on the “lows,” which is even more evident if one looks at the “no-alcohol” wines: these are wines that, while they start from low numbers, within two years have doubled their sales in the U.S., standing today-according to the UIV Observatory-at $62 million.
Zero-alcohol Italian products on U.S. shelves are few; sales total just $4.5 million (+39% over 2022) with an average price of $14 per liter. A residual share of the Italian presence (7 percent of the total), which becomes minuscule when one considers that 90 percent of sales are attributable to a single company, moreover American, which buys finished products in Italy and markets them under its own brand name. In practice, the no-alcohol segment directly operated by Italian firms is worth less than $500,000 in the US.
A made-in-Italy winemaking subcontracting along the lines of the scenario highlighted for low alcohols, made even more evident by the inability of the Italian wine company to access a business, dealcolates, blocked by existing laws in the Belpaese, but not in Europe. In the U.S., in addition to U.S. brands, zero-degree fully dealcolated wines produced by Spanish, German, and French companies are already being sold, benefiting from regulations in line with those in Europe.
A business opportunity with respect to inventories
For UIV secretary general Paolo Castelletti, “The low-alcohol segment can also and especially represent an opportunity where the traditional product struggles, as shown by the 20-year record of wine left in the cellar at the end of the last harvest year .
Today to make low-alcohol wines, Italian producers have three paths:
- Use wine as a base for flavored drinks,
- Produce wines from partially fermented musts,
- delegate the production process to direct competitor European countries, in case they want to proceed with dealcolation.”
It is precisely the dealcoholic wine segment that seems to be the most interesting one from a medium-term perspective, able to to intercept the health trends taking place in the country, which is increasingly oriented toward reducing the intake not only of alcohol but also of sugar. A category, that of Nolo (low and no alcohol), considered by many companies to have the greatest potential for qualitative growth.
Italy lacks regulatory intervention
In Italy, unfortunately,” reports Unione italiana vini (Italian Wine Union), “Uiv has long called for regulatory intervention to regulate production that the European Union has authorized for more than two years,” said Castelletti -. Net of the draft decrees – on which we have highlighted the wine sector’s concerns – we are the only ones who have not yet transposed the EU regulation, with clear competitive disadvantages compared to EU producers. We therefore believe that the government must deal with this no-longer-deferrable issue as a matter of urgency, clearly defining together with the sector a clear perimeter for action“. With the paradox of finding no and low-alcohol wines from foreign competitors in the supermarket down the street, now ahead of a research and experimentation in the segment that is making progress by the day.
Italian low alcohol data
Italian low alcohol, represented by both wine-based flavored products and actual wines, is worth $651 million in the U.S., nearly 70 percent of the total category (7 to 2 proofs), which overall in 2023 reached $943 million and nearly 110 million bottles sold. Italian origin, the queen of the market, can be traced-among still wines-mostly to reds (39 percent, at $254 million), followed by Moscato (103 million) and rosé (23 million).
