In retail -7% of bottles sold in the first 9 months

High prices limit Italians' purchasing power: inflationary push on labels at +7% in the last quarter. The elaborations of the UIV-ISMEA observatory based on Nielsen.

(Rome, Oct. 18, 2022). Prices go up and wine consumption goes down in Italian large-scale retail trade. According to the UIV-ISMEA observatory , in the first 9 months of this year, purchases on the shelves of large-scale distribution and retail compared to the same period in 2021 fell in volume by 6.9 percent (to 5.6 million hectoliters, below even pre-Covid levels), the equivalent of 55 million fewer bottles. The value balance is also down (-3.5 percent to 2 billion euros), despite the fact that the average price gradually rose by +7 percent in the second and third quarters. And it is precisely this price growth, dictated exclusively by an inflationary push that is in any case still underestimated compared to the real cost surplus charged by wine businesses, that - according to the Observatory - is ballasting sales, in anticipation of an even more difficult autumn-winter for Italians.

If then until now the restaurant segment with the boom in tourism from abroad has also managed to drive the wine market, the off trade is beginning to show the first signs of difficulty, starting with its most representative wine products.

Sales at large-scale distribution show a drop in volume for all types of wines, with still wines at -7.5% while sparkling wines pay less (-2.2%) thanks to double-digit growth in the increasingly significant segment of "low cost" dry sparkling wines, which maintained an average price 30% lower than the category average. Among still wines, Uiv-Ismea elaborations show negative volume peaks for reds (-9.2%), while whites stopped at -6% and rosés at -3.8%. Hardest hit by consumption reductions are PDO wines, which close the first nine months at -8.7% (-which becomes -11.5% for reds), compared with -8.1% for IGTs, while ordinary wines close the balance at -6%. Very few green-lighted appellations among volume sales, not surprisingly those that kept their prices substantially unchanged-or even decreased (Castelli Romani, Oltrepò Pavese Barbera, Nobile di Montepulciano, Vermentino di Sardegna). Above-average declines, on the other hand, on sales volumes for some of Italy's most important appellations, such as Prosecco (-8.5 percent) Classic Method sparkling wines (-10.4 percent), Chianti Docg (-11.5 percent) Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (-9.7 percent), Barbera (-15.9) and Lambrusco. Among typical geographical indications, significant reductions also for Puglia Igt, Terre Siciliane, Lambrusco Emilia, Rubicone Trebbiano.

The niche of organic wines is also down (they account for just over 1 percent of the total in volume), not only in terms of bottles consumed (-2.3 percent), but especially in terms of value generated (-5.9 percent), despite a 4 percent list filing (5.19 euros per liter). Also down was e-commerce, whose momentum stopped in both volumes (-15%) and values (-23%, to 34.7 million euros).

"Sales data," stressed Fabio Del Bravo, Ismea's rural development services manager, "tell us that the responsiveness of wine purchases to price has become high, while the sentiment detected by Ismea as part of the quarterly survey on the climate of confidence among operators in the wine supply chain shows a worsening of judgments on the future evolution of the economy and also on the tightness of future orders. Should the pressure on the cost side not ease, in the impossibility of transferring price increases downstream, the supply chain could for the first time in years enter difficulties on the domestic front.

For the secretary general of Unione italiana vini (UIV), Paolo Castelletti: So far, the supply chain has managed to keep price dynamics under control as far as possible, and it must be given credit to distribution for doing its part. It would be more desirable than ever to keep price lists in balance in the coming months, when the purchasing power of families will be further reduced due to energy costs, food and basic necessities."