Too much wine?

The latest data on surplus wine in Italy is truly disturbing and not even a poor harvest, like the once we just had, can counterbalance the situation (and at what cost?). It’s time the sector, with the support of the political world, came up with a strategy to help get out of this mess.

Report N° 9/2023 from the Ministry of Agriculture opens with a statement that is alarming to say the least: “As of September 30, 2023, Italian wine storehouses held 42.8 million hectoliters of wine (…) representing a (+9.1%) surplus over September 20, 2022”. Although some of this surplus is wine that is aging, the majority is composed of unsold wine. Several regions, first of all Abruzzo and Puglia, are having serious problems and the situation is not improving despite one of the poorest harvests in recent years, caused by blight and decidedly unfavorable weather conditions. As opposed to the endless discussions and inability to make decisions in Italy, France has just earmarked 200 million euros to finance the distillation surplus wine and the uprooting of hundreds, if not thousands, of hectares of vineyards to limit production and uphold prices.

All this is taking place in a framework that is disturbing, to say the least, with inflation still not under control, two very serious wars underway, a general decline in wine consumption, Italy’s leading export markets either stalled or retreating and a penalizing trend against wine on the part of the European Union (with the probable cancellation of OCM funding for wine promotion, for example). The situation is tragic and there is currently no real strategy to deal with it.

I think we need to move quickly, because the near future could be truly complicated for Italian wine (and not just wine, unfortunately), and yet I do not see any type of initiative aimed at resolving the situation nor even to fully comprehend it much less deal with it as they have just done in France where, evidently, they have demonstrated an awareness that is totally lacking in Italy.