Italian wine consumption in a free fall

The plunge in domestic wine consumption in Italy in recent years is alarming. It has plummeted today to 29 liters per capita a year, an unprecedented drop despite the fact it has been constantly declining for years. Just to put things in perspective, in 1975 annual per capita consumption in Italy was 104 liters and in 1980, the record year for production with 86 million hectoliters made, Italians were still drinking over 70 liters of wine a year. Three years ago everyone was worried because consumption had fallen below 40 liters. The time has come to take into consideration a number of factors. The first is that this year exports of Italian wine will for the first time surpass domestic consumption. The second is there is no market strategy to promote wine consumption on the part of producers nor the State. The State, in fact, has on the one hand encouraged exports with incentives, while on the other it has discouraged domestic consumption by adopting stiffer anti-alcohol laws and hiking taxes on alcoholic beverages and this despite the fact that Italians are already drinking 75% less. Not only that, the State has also hurt producers by increasing taxes on vineyard land. And all this while touting wine as one of Italy’s best agricultural products, at Milan’s Expo 2015 world’s fair for example. The result is that now many wineries, even the better-known ones, are up for sale, many wines are being sold below cost, especially abroad, and the whole wine market is ebbing, even in the hotel, bar and restaurant sector, with the consequence that payments are becoming slower and more difficult. As evidenced in the table below, in recent years the gap between production and consumption has been widening dramatically and while today Italy produces 280 million hectoliters of wine, it consumes only just 240 million. If this trend continues, economic law tells us that it will lead to an overall drop in prices, to say nothing of those of the politically hyped ‘super’ wines. The outlook is dire and cause for concern because should exports fall, then there will be real trouble.